Slashdot Mirror
1 MW Cold Fusion Plant Supposedly To Come Online
First time accepted submitter Jherico writes "Andrea Rossi (covered here a few times before) is scheduled to bring his 1MW plant online Oct. 28th. This will likely either be the point where 'unexpected technical difficulties' unmask this for the scam it is, or the presence of an actual 1MW plant with no chemical fuel source will silence a lot of skeptics. What would you do if it were real?"
Oblig xkcd:
http://xkcd.com/955/
I'm afraid ritual suicide would be my only option.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I guess I'd have to start paying attention to self-published papers after they were rejected by peer review.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Blah, I've followed a blogger who seemed to have a good grasp of how things works, and then he publishing something gushy about free energy I felt sad for him.. Now my standards for slashdot must be much lower, this doesn't surprise me I'm just disappointed. Ignore them. Please.
Big Copper will probably kill it off.
I guess I'd use it to wirelessly power my flying electric car.
where's all that Karma?
The discussion for events happening today has been moved onto its own thread:
http://www.e-catworld.com/2011/10/e-day-thread-rossis-1-mw-e-cat-plant-tested-by-first-customer/
PES Network is going to be tweeting about it:
https://twitter.com/#!/PESNetwork
Prepare for some real-time cognative dissonance from Rossi et al.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If the test would be positive it will mean the end of Putinomics.
Seriously? Next you'll be posting about water-powered cars, or over unity devices...
Can we stick to real life please?
take short positions in oil and gas?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
This will not work. There's absolutely no reason not to publish such stuff in respected journals -- if it really works, it will pass the muster. The guy is a scam artist with a long history, it's irresponsible to expect anything else from him without a lot of due diligence. Since he doesn't let anyone do their due diligence, I say it's still a scam.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
now my/our expectation on bad topics (or rather ads) from /. can't go any lower. It can only get better. In 10 years from now we will remember this day as the low water mark!
(I so so so so hope at least. Please...)
If it works? Have a party of epic proportions. Or possibly just epic intensity with a few select friends.
Given the history of the man, I don't hold out MUCH hope. But the prize is so great that I can't help but hope a little.
If it works, the future for my daughter will be more likely to be safe and secure. We might even have a stab at world peace.
If it doesn't work... well, it's a shame. It gives the people who are really trying a bad name, and fewer chances at funding.
/me strokes evil white pussy.
And it's not quite true that 'he would have published if it was real'.
If you have sufficiently ridiculous claims, journals may not accept your paper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Shechtman - as one example of work ridiculed at the time that went on to win a Nobel prize.
Unfortunately, for example, there are also people that write letters like this: http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/smithsonian.asp
If it is true, I would send the guy my heartfelt thanks, and not buy the expensive heatpump for this winter.
You sound like the lot that cried "impossible" on the topic of humans crossing the oceans, flying in the air, leaving the planet's atmosphere, and, may I add, on the topic of nuclear power. Why can't shitheads like you just wait a while longer?
If you're thinking of the zero-point energy, quantum mechanics actually makes it pretty clear that it's completely unavailable, even in principle. If you could extract the zero-point energy - hypothetically - you would cause a vacuum metastability event, which would destroy the observable universe.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
"Free energy", when used in a scientific (not pseudo-scientific) context, refers to a thermodynamic quantity, basically an entropy-corrected energy. It doesn't mean "Energy for free".
"Zero energy" means just that, an energy value of zero (depending on the context, it doesn't need to mean the minimal energy, e.g. for bound systems the energy scale is usually taken so that the bound states have negative energy).
Maybe you meant "zero point energy", which is basically the energy of the vacuum. Since effects like the Casimir effect can locally suppress some vacuum fluctuations, some people dream of extracting that energy from the vacuum. But generally the vacuum state is considered the lowest-energy state possible.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It will work for a short amount of time....
and then slowly drop in output and fail.
Because all the AA batteries that are hidden inside all the equipment will have been drained.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
“Grams/Power for a 180 days charge
Hydrogen: 18000 g
Nickel: 10000 g”
According to my calculations this would compute to:
100 g of hydrogen, and about 56 g of nickel per day to run a 1 MW plant; OR
4.17 g of hydrogen, and 2.3 g of nickel per hour.
Fuel use would be 0.00417 g of hydrogen, and 0.0023 g of nickel per kWh.
How nice and neat that 1MWh power generation for 1 day = 100grams of Hydrogen used. nice clean round numbers that come out after all the losses have been accounted for.
even for laymen this guy is full of crap, or is lying about what he is doing or using. NOTHING in physics is nice clean round numbers as if they had been pulled randomly out of a hat.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
He is a businessman and a tinkerer that has managed to make it work in a commercially viable fashion. He may very well end up being the world's first trillionaire. There are problems, regulatory and safety issues, including thermal runaway. But, it does work. The chief science writer for AP appears to be at the test, so we should hear a lot in the next day or two.
Eat it. No, seriously.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
So the question is legit: how would efficient fusion change our lives?
Personally I don't think it would be good, as a cheap, clean and seemingly endless source would trigger an exponential growth in energy consumption, and when fusion fuel runs out there will be no other source to satisfy those needs. With our current consumption we still have a chance to switch to renewable before fossile fuel runs out, using nuclear as an intermediate solution until we re ready to do it.
Because there's still time to rip people off?
"But generally the vacuum state is considered the lowest-energy state possible."
I'm pretty sure a couch potato playing Farmville is the lowest energy state possible.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
"Until some hour ago I felt a strong pressure, now, at the eve of the battle, as usual, I am recovering all my coldness and calm. We are ready."
If that doesn't describe the thought process of a sociopath, then I don't know what does.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
which would destroy the observable universe.
Equally unbelievable.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If the fusion fuel is hydrogen, and we use it reasonably efficiently, then when it runs out the so-called renewables will have run out as well. They are just second hand fusion power derived from a fusion reactor 93 million miles away, running on the same hydrogen as we are using for our fusion. Hydrogen has run out, the sun will be cooling as well. There is enough hydrogen in Jupiter that if we fuse it all on Earth, we will have killed ourselves with waste heat and be in danger of melting the Earth.
Not that I believe this particular project is real, but if we did get very cheap hydrogen fusion power, heat pollution would be a problem long, long before running out of hydrogen was a problem.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Fusion fuel in general basically cannot run out, there is simply too much of it.
There are 1.4*10^21 Kg of water in the hydrosphere.
About 1*10^20 Kg of that is hydrogen.
3*10^16Kg of that is Deuterium, or 1.5*10^19 moles, or 10^42 atoms.
In D-D fusion, the energy released per nucleus is about 8MeV, so that's 10^49eV of energy.
4*10^23kWh.
Assuming a hundred billion people, that's 4*10^12kWh, or assuming a hundred kilowatts per person, 4 billion hours from D-D fusion.
Around half a million years.
And this is neglecting hydrogen.
If you have exponential growths in available energy, that leads to exponential growths in:
- Spaceflight potential (hell, it suddenly becomes a cinch to take a entire power station to the Moon or Mars and back - and while you're there look for fuel, etc.).
- Food, water, heat, light, etc. for humans, which leads to many more productive, educated, "worryless" humans (i.e. we have 7bn productive people learning science instead of most of them trying to scrape a living to earn enough to eat for most of their day).
- Particle physics (which can only help us throw more energy at more subatomic matter and find more possible fusion fuels - this is ignoring the fact that fusion is a quite efficient way of using a fuel, much more so than the stuff we use at the moment - e=MC^2 provides a lot of energy from a little bit of matter if you do it right).
- Computing power. You can now just throw billions of simulations and refinery analysis etc. at a supercomputer that consumes whatever it needs and cools itself to whatever temperature you want. Farms of the damn things, limited only by space.
I don't see that we would have major problems even if we assume that humans are inherently dumb and will just consume whatever they can (and everyone ends up pulling MWh's for themselves all day long).
We really need an "Energy Age" where we solve that problem first, in order to prove that it won't spoil us. But of course, the next week the paper's will be begging us to cutdown because of shortage of X or environmental impact Y.
I don't think you understand exponential growth.
I mean free energy as in "perpetual motion"
Put the reactors in space and beam the power down with microwaves to cut down on heat pollution Also, start sending probes around the sun with Bussard collectors to support our energy addiction.
I can go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy my very own Cold Fusion power-plant and take my house off the electric grid and it really works and lasts 10 years or more..
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
.
That being said, this one is obviously a scam. Why do I say so? Dig back through the previous stories and you will see a picture of a shipping container full of little black plastic buckets in racks, which is supposed to be a 1MW reactor. Excuse me? You but 1MW of thermal energy in a confined space like that and it will heat up so much that all the liquid would evaporate and the steam would kill anyone attempting to maintain it. The reaction produces heat energy, and plastic buckets aren't going to last very long. These CF reactions have been known to scorch the tables that the apparatus were sitting on. A plastic container is just plain stupid and this photo only demonstrates a man with a limited intelligence at work. Also, where is the generator? The reaction does not create electricity, it produces thermal heat. You need a generator my friend, and preferably a brain containing half a conscience would not hurt either..
Is this plant built where one can extract some geothermal energy from the ground? 1 MegaWatt isn't all that much to scam. The only problem would be getting rid of all the sulfur and mercury that comes up with the steam without anyone noticing.
It is one thing to be ignorant of science taught at the high-school level (the education system sucks), but to then take on airs and call other people stupid is a bit rich.
Look up "free energy" in a physics textbook or Wikipedia. While you're at it, read through the "Laws of thermodynamics" article.
This is a neat schedule. Are we starting a tradition of Loony Friday?
The heat pollution results after the power is used. Even if the generating system produces no waste heat at all (thermodynamically impossible), all the energy beamed down ends up as heat after it is used. Your computer needs fans to get rid of the used heat from its operation. And bussard ramjets are overkill - as I said, Jupiter contains more hydrogen than we can safely use.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
If it were to work, I would just leave my computer on all the time. Most likely change electrical companies.
They laughed at Galileo.
They laughed at Einstein.
They also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Thank you! ...I almost clicked on the link. If it's not genuine goatse, i don't wanna see it.
What would you rather watch - the wreckage of someone's revolutionary rocket-powered flying submersible consisting of two bathtubs welded together, or said vehicle as it's launched over the ocean?
Any nerd claiming to wear a tinfoil head is either a wannabe or part of the tinfoil conspiracy!
It is so obvious that tinfoil hats might cover you from alleged hostile brain control waves from sattelites thousands of kilometeres awas, but otoh forms a nearly parabolic antenna to the whole communication wires and infrastructure below pedestrian lanes just a couple of meters away. And coincidentally only relevant people will be affected, since only they are likely to wear - wait a minute, there is someone knocking at my door, I will write more. later.
Trolling is a art!
Actually it's a pretty easy trivial thing to derive.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Are Atomic Energy Plants "Stuff That Matters"?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
His raw material is heavily laced with a load of polonium and thinly plated on the outside. No detectable radiation from the Po.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I would start up my lucrative unicorn racing business.
This is obviously a scam, but even if it were legit why is it needed? Why do we need a fusion reactor here on Earth when there is a fusion reactor that is roughly 150m kilometers away? Between solar and wind alone this reactor provides us with all the energy we need without the worries of a major disaster here on Earth. Besides centralized energy sources are obsoleteand should be replaced by decentralized energy sources.
It's called the Long Con.
I'm thinking of the Rapture guy. A few people gave their life savings to him. At the very least he's getting ad clicks, maybe. When you do a Long Con you have to push it really close like a game of chicken and Spin-Doctor the daylights out of the last 12 hours.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
CBS 60 Seconds take on this (below), military is working on it too. Maybe he really has found something, not fusion, they are calling it LENR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNn_Z6wCIk
That doesn't make it true. The WHOLE universe? Such claims fail to pass my "extremes" filter.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Because if it doesn't fit your established expectations, it HAS to be wrong.
Nobel Prize Winner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Shechtman
Discrediting the work
Shechtman experienced several years of hostility toward his non-periodic interpretation (no less a figure than Linus Pauling said he was "talking nonsense" and "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists."[4]).
The head of Shechtman's research group told him to "go back and read the textbook" and then "asked him to leave for 'bringing disgrace' on the team." Shechtman felt rejected.[4]
The Nobel Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that "his discovery was extremely controversial," but that his work "eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter."[4]
...how far a little bit of bipolar disorder can take you.
Sure, they guy is a fraud, but he's a rich fraud. Part of me is jealous. A small part.
Celebrate.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Based on my background in physics, I believe nothing will happen. However, there is a small chance (less than10%) the atmosphere will catch on fire.
Hydrogen run out? We've got oceans of the stuff!
To extract energy from the zero-point vacuum, we must assume that it is a "false vacuum", and a lower-energy vacuum could be created. If you convert a region of false vacuum into a lower-energy vacuum, you can extract the difference in energy. Unfortunately that region must necessarily obey different physical laws than our universe, and because it has a lower energy, that region will expand at the speed of light. By definition anything that is currently observable will be within range of that effect.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Part of the problem is that almost all institutional incompetence derives from faulty incentive structures, so it is easy to impute to the critic the claim that such incompetence is not incompetence at all but, rather, is self-interest. The critic is hard-pressed to deny this (except insofar as such self-interest is unenlightened hence incompetent in that meta-sense) and is thence imputed to "theorize" a "conspiracy" of self-interested individuals as the basis for the maintenance of the institutionalized incompetence. Again, the critic may not have put forth nor even have thought of such a theory but he is hard-pressed to disprove that a "conspiracy" -- in some sense -- is at work so he cannot very well vigorously deny such a theory. This vulnerability of the critic is then viciously attacked. This all goes on within a subtext of the conversation so it is a rare critic that recognizes how the burden of proof has been shifted from the institutionally incompetent needing to prove that the critic has theorized a "conspiracy" (which, of course, would require defining "conspiracy") to the critic needing to prove that such a "conspiracy" (the definition of which is, after all, in the mind of the institutionally incompetent) is clearly out of the question despite the vagueness of the term multiplied by the lack of information with which to support or deny even a clear definition.
So, the institution of "Critics are crazy people." successfully defends all institutional incompetence.
While this is merely part of the problem, its effectiveness in promoting institutional incompetence leads to a rather undesirable state of affairs.
As an extreme illustration let me describe a fictional dialog between Pol Pot and a government funded "physicist" regarding the "cold fusion" debacle.
First a bit of background on this conversation between Pol Pot and a government funded "physicist":
January 26, 1990, the journal Nature rejected Oriani's empirical validation of Pons and Fleischmann's 1989 announcement of "excess heat" on the grounds that he didn't provide evidence of nuclear ash and, besides, others were having difficulties replicating the experiment. It is no exaggeration to say this rejection established the foundation for all future claims that there had been no replication of Pons and Fleischmann's announced results -- hence the summary rejection of virtually all submissions related to so-called "cold fusion": Nuclear "physcists" must be satisfied in their irrational standard of conformance to expectation before any experimental results would be published.
Then we are treated to the statement by the DoE's chairman of the panel appointed to investigate cold fusion, John Huizenga:
"Although the McKubre experiment is considered by many advocates to be the premier evidence for excess heat, no nuclear reaction products were reported."
Huizenga is not a Nobel Laureate but a co-chair who was a Nobel Laureate, Norman Ramsey had to threaten to resign if the conclusion of the panel was to cut off future research -- as was Huizenga's agenda. Ramsey managed to prevent a prohibition on future research funding -- and a recommendation that such research should focus on replication of the calorimetery, hence excess heat. That is all he was able to accomplish with his ultimatum. There was no positive recommendation that funds be put forth. Hence, no research was funded.
These two events created an environment in which it was career death for anyone to request funds for "cold fusion" research, let alone so-allocate discretionary funds.
For a complete account of the premature and enduring attack on "cold fusion" research, see "Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research P
Seastead this.
Why not do some research on it before making up your mind? Skepticism is good, but it should lead to investigation not prejudice.
I agree completely, but I must add that we're presently going in the opposite direction, since shutting down nuclear power plants after the Fukushima catastrophe will soon lead to energy scarcity and price increases.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
So you're saying it's "free as in energy, not free as in beer!"
P.s. love your nick!
No, they'd clearly be stuff that dematters.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
There's a tried and true con game, called "salting." Criminals would "salt" an exhausted mine with uncut gemstones or the ore of precious metals, and let the investor "find" them, and thus trick the investor into giving them millions for a worthless hole in the ground.
If this power plant does work, I'd bring a geiger counter with me to check that these "fusion" devices weren't simply black market radioisotope batteries from Russia.
Really, this is going to happen in Bologna... Isn't that a bit ironic?
1. Tell everyone you invented a cold fusion reactor 2. ??? 3. Profit!
- This old grey mare she ain't what she used to be
If you want to know what's really going to happen, it's pretty simple. First tomorrow their will be a lot of heat but not near 1 MW. However, real Scientists will take a look at the device and figure out how it works sometime before Thanks Giving. One these scientists will get a little over ambitious and build large a more efficient device. It will fire up on December 12, 2012. However, the cold fusion will produce a lot more heat and huge magnetic field that will fuse the moisture(Hydrogen) and co2 (carbon) in the air this will spread out in about 2.5 seconds across the globe. The reaction will be so intensive that earth will covert into a star for around 10 minutes. The spiral of the star earths magnetic field which is such that it causes sub-atomic particles to vibrate in the electromagnetic plan (or dimension if you prefer). When this happens atoms exposed to this field will fuse because of a loss of magnetic repulsion causing the atoms to collide and fuse. This BTW is how cold fuse works because when the hydrogen is exposed to the electromagnetic forces it's proton vibrates on in the electromagnetic plan. But what people won't know is that when it fuses it create a never before seen spiral magnetic field that cause other atoms to be vibrate in the same dimensional plane. The Sun will follow suit burning a large amount of it's own fuel in about 16 minutes. The other plants will also follow suit. This will create a HUGE magnetic spiral that might chain react across the universe transforming it. Over trillions of years the subatomic particles no longer repelled by electromagnetism will continue to fuse and grow ever large masses this will lead to the next big bang. Anyway, that's what the Mayans were saying would happen.
Spaceflight potential (hell, it suddenly becomes a cinch to take a entire power station to the Moon or Mars and back - and while you're there look for fuel, etc.).
Space flight is limited by fuel, not energy. Except if we build a space elevator/giant railgun wich may or may not be possible.
Food, water, heat, light, etc. for humans, which leads to many more productive, educated, "worryless" humans (i.e. we have 7bn productive people learning science instead of most of them trying to scrape a living to earn enough to eat for most of their day).
Food and water can't be produced by energy. Human population can't grow exponentially much longer.
Particle physics (which can only help us throw more energy at more subatomic matter and find more possible fusion fuels - this is ignoring the fact that fusion is a quite efficient way of using a fuel, much more so than the stuff we use at the moment - e=MC^2 provides a lot of energy from a little bit of matter if you do it right).
You are assuming we find a way around the second law of thermodynamics.
I don't see that we would have major problems even if we assume that humans are inherently dumb and will just consume whatever they can (and everyone ends up pulling MWh's for themselves all day long).
I didn't assume humans are dumb, I assumed they will act according to their best selfish interest.
I don't think you understand exponential growth.
I don't think you understand "hundred billion people".
Will we ever learn the lessons from http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Project_Arcturus
I suspect not..
That's not even the same scam as this one...
No sig today...
Andrea Rossi is his own worst enemy - his arrogance, paranoia and lazy approach to instrumentation (as well as a total inability to accept advice) has resulted in something like 11 inadequate demos so far, any one of which could have made him a billionaire if he had only spent another few hours setting up to take measurements of demonstable veracity and run the thing for half a day or more rather than a couple of hours. He can't even be bothered to record data during his demos, even when all it would take is the insertion of an SD card into his thermometer! He basically expects the world to take him at his word (in spite of his history of scam-like behaviour), and while supreme belief in one's own correctness is a useful attribute as an inventor, it is hurting him badly now - he has had to sell his house to keep going.
That said I have spent a lot of time trying to forensically extract answers from the crappy data and other info gathered during his demos, and his latest on 6th October looks pretty convincing - it ran for 3 hours producing 3+ kW output with about 100W of control input, with reasonably good calorimetry. His latest move to a 1MW plant demo is extremely stupid - expensive, dangerous and totally unecessary as any potential investor would be happy with a 5kW demo done with care.
So even if his engineering and judgement is atrocious (he built a steam pressure vessel as a box shape FFS!!) I am personally convinced that he has something (neither he nor anyone else knows how it works, but it works). But at this point he should be removed from the project and replaced by someone competent for his and the world's sake.
Security guard: "Mornin', Mr. Freeman! Looks like you're running late!"
But what were the Mayans saying about how this would impact the global confusion over the difference between itsand it's? Will that finally get straightened out? It might be worth having the universe end if it would put an end to that problem. That, and the end of people using loose when they mean lose. I'm all for the apocalypse if I never again have to read a forum thread in which theoretically academic people talk about how the wrong sort of science and public relations can cause a program to loose it's funding.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I can't tell if you are a shizophrenic or one of those random text generators intended to circumvent spam detection.
So actually has no bearing on your parent posters' quote you took.
Also note that it took two years for the paper to be accepted in a different forum after a rewrite.
Since Charles Dickens had to rewrite many sections of his book, were those versions rejected because Charles Dickens wasn't believed, or because he needed to state his story better?
Same here: good science written in a way nobody can understand needs rewriting.
Rejecting a paper and saying "We don't understand this, have a go with a more specialist magazine or rewrite it" isn't rejecting it saying "We don't believe you".
They will have to shut down the test because they do not have the necessary permits to run a nuclear power generation station. They will try again once they get the necessary permits but could take months for the paperwork to get done.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Oct. 27th. 16:43 GMT .....Clearly a scammer. After seeing that post, you don't need to work in a physics lab to know it is a scam. .....God willing and shit.
Rossi posts: "I think tomorrow we will make, with the help of God, a good job."
Growth in energy consumption would still be capped by how much electricity we can actually transmit and use. As in, the wires coming to your house probably can't deliver more than a couple hundred amps to every house. Upgrading and maintaining that infrastructure isn't free, so you will still pay for electricity. Even if everyone had a generator at home you still need to pay to maintain the generator itself and all the wiring. And all the gadgets that use the power aren't free.
To extract energy from the zero-point vacuum, we must assume that it is a "false vacuum", and a lower-energy vacuum could be created.
Okay
If you convert a region of false vacuum into a lower-energy vacuum, you can extract the difference in energy.
Uh huh
Unfortunately that region must necessarily obey different physical laws than our universe,
Umm
and because it has a lower energy, that region will expand at the speed of light.
Oh, come on!
The e-cat is essentially a "black box", with no moving parts, which produces electricity. What will the video be showing? The readout of an electric meter showing volts/watts/amperes? I suppose mostly it'll show reaction from whoever they got to attend the event?
I don't think you understand the limits of growth. Exponential growth never goes on forever. And in the case of hydrogen fusion it's not the fuel which will be the limiting factor.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You have a very limited imagination if you can't think of ways to use limitless energy in food production. And water? I'm not a scientist but can't you just heat some seawater and cool the steam to get rid of impurities? And why couldn't you just pump some water from the sea and use the Sahara desert to grow some food.
If you take short positions on oil and gas, you, uhhh, lose your shorts.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, this is actually legit. It'll take a decade or two, at least, before enough of these are built to even make a small dent in the international energy market. Shorting stock is a game of predicting that the stock will lose value within the next *week*. Plus, if this is real, I expect the current energy giants to get a stranglehold on the technology, so that they control the technology (or they own most of the nickel mines, or whatever else goes into the e-cat to make it work, so they continue to control the resources).
I never thought there'd be a way to look like even more of a douche than missing the point entirely and posting inappropriately smug and condescending comments on Slashdot. Oh wait, there isn't.
Seastead this.
I'd keep getting up in the morning, going to work, and paying my electric and heat bill. Perhaps when I'm an old man, my energy bills will be lower or about the same as they are now (instead of rising with inflation).
I read that they boosted the anti-mass spectrometer 105%. A bit of a gamble, but they need the added resolution. The Customer is very concerned that they get a conclusive analysis of today's test. I gather they went to some lengths to prepare it.
I don't think this story will get any clearer any time soon. No need for unexpected technical difficulties, let's not be naive! I am sure they will give the magic power plant to a secret customer (maybe Santa Claus), who will surely be extremely satisfied by the product. However we won't know who the hell is the customer. Confidential. They will say that they will tell us some day in the future... and buy some more time. They just keep on buying time, never solving the issue for real. So we will go back to the starting point... scratching our head in trying to figure out if this is the most important descovery ever (and it would really be!) or a funny scam. But that is exactly the game here: buy time, let the people talk and speculate, create the myth. Many months have passed now, many excuses, much talk, many demonstrations, never fully conclusive... if there is still doubt - I say - it's a scam!
I hope I am wrong, I would love this to be real... but I am afraid I am not. So Ecat guys: go ahead and show how wrong I am in not believing you, you have my blessing.
this is very related, it is the same phenomenon (LENR)
huh? Human population isn't growing exponentially. The growth rate has decreased for the last 40 years, and is currently around 1.2%
and wonder what horrible unforseen consequence its use will create. It probably sterilizes everyone or creates genetic modifications that turn humans into politicians, or zombies, or some other type of monster.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
...stick some brewskis in a cooler with the reactor, and say to my buddies: "Thank God for cooooold fusion, hehehe."
Yes, obligatory Starcraft 1 reference. That just happened.
...military is working on it too.
Yes. These are the same people who researched using psychics for intelligence. It means nothing (other than, if you have enough money, you can afford to waste it outrageously).
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Are we sure that cold fusion isn't possible from extracting economic sustainability and financial stability through the ether? I think that's how Rossi got it working.
Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
It's not prejudice, it's critical thinking. The kind that lets you understand that even though you can write an algebraic proof that 1 = 2, one does not really equal two.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If it is true, then he has solved the energy problems of the world. And he patented it. I only hear a screaming Queen of Hearts in my head: "Off with his head!"
I'm pretty sure that what he meant was that it would be easier to bring compact power sources into space and potentially refuel them if they were being used on a planetary body or elsewhere that might have a supply of hydrogen and nickel. Right now the only options we have are solar and nuclear for providing power in space, the former requires a lot of mass for small gain and the latter has become a bit of a hairy political issue. Also, using a railgun is not as far fetched as you think [1] [2], the limitations are mainly related to the amount of power that can be supplied.
Tell that to a third-world farmer hauling water and planting crops by hand. Before cheap, available internal combustion engines food production was drastically lower than it is today simply because it was so labor intesive. The arrival of motor driven farm equipment and the advances in irrigation and fertilizer production made possible by new energy sources are the reason that the world population has hit 7 billion this quickly. [3] Human reproduction also tends to level out as standard of living increases. [4]
I don't see anywhere that he implied we would violate conservation of energy. It looks like all he is saying is that 1) the study of particle physics may lead to new ways of producing fission or fusion economically 2) sustainable fusion would be more efficient at releasing energy than current methods e.g. fossil fuels, solar, wind, etc. 3) E=mc^2 does in fact hold the promise that we will someday be able to readily convert mass to usable energy.
This reminds me of the coverage surrounding Madison Priest's "magic box". Do the Google, or check these two articles (sadly no pics in the archived articles).
Then be amazed, if it actually did work.
Mainstream science would sure get told for once.
Fringe Science is its daddy, after all. Without it, we'd still be flinging fecal matter at each other.
That's only true if you were fool enough to proceed without reversing the polarity of the tachyon field.
One of the things I like about slashdot is that sometimes the technobabble is really quite well done.
I think you have Sockatume's argument backwards. He's not arguing that it is possible for us to destroy the universe - he's arguing that if you have a theory that says that you can get free energy, but the math works out such that it would destroy the universe... you probably don't have a way to extract that energy. In other words, the free energy "proof" works out to 1=2.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Plants like this put cities like Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook on the map!
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
This. It's something which is impossible, and even if you could do it - you had a magic wand or something - it would be limitlessly catastrophic.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I know, it reads like I should be filling in blanks on fucking Star Trek, but I swear it's as accurate as my understanding of it.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
"you would cause a vacuum metastability event, which would destroy the observable universe."
so do it with your eyes closed. the worst that will happen is that your eyelids will vaporize.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Hey real scientists in the run up to the Nuclear and Hydrogen bomb said that detonating the bomb would ignite the atmosphere and destroy the planet.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, posting a fictional conversation between Pol Pot (of all people, why him?), and government funded "physicist" (why the quotes, is he or is he not a physicist) does not really enhance your case.
Also see: long winded, rambling.
Where does this conversation come from, who is the scientist, and why is Pol Pot a zombie?
Man, Andrea, I was just kidding. I would've just grabbed you one from the freezer.
Your statement is based on the premise that we have already reached a total understanding on how the universe actually works. The vast majority of our knowledge base in particle and energy related physics is based on mathematical models combined with a lot of assumptions. The majority of our knowledge in astrology related physics depend on the validity of the fine-structure constant and the theories of dark matter or dark energy needed to make the math work. So far we have evidence that the fine-structure constant appears to vary depending on which part of the universe you are looking at.
Great points and you might like this: http://ecatsite.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/dr-george-miley-replicates-patterson-names-rossi/
http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/some-of-rossi%E2%80%99s-cold-fusion-results-reportedly-replicated
By me on why the results should be freely released, btw: http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I'm gonna hold my breath! See! I'm holding it! Ok, fire 'er up!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No, they didn't. They considered the possibility of a runaway nitrogen fission chain reaction, ran the numbers, and determined it would not happen. Sort of like the LHC blackhole bullshit. "We considered the possibility, the odds are trillions to one against" "So......they aren't zero? SCIENTISTS CONFIRM LHC MAY DESTROY UNIVERSE".
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Skepticism is good, but it should lead to investigation not prejudice.
After a while you figure out that life's too short to investigate every kook out there.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is a much better way to do it.
If his machine works then let him show it in action. A positive result is very easy to measure and as far as I know we don't have easily concealable 1-megawatt batteries yet.
No sig today...
Help help! I'm being repressed! Come and see the incompetence inherent in the institution!
https://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/93edc128d5cd0054
Essentially, whenever a system does not seem to obey the second law of thermodynamics, we just invent new science.
And here is another essay by me sent to Andrea Rossi on why cold fusion information be made freely available because of a paradigm shift in economics from scarcity towards abundance: http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If it works, oil is obsolete, consider the implications of that.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"Perpetual motion" isn't free energy. For free energy the wheel actually needs to speed up.
No sig today...
"Until some hour ago I felt a strong pressure, now, at the eve of the battle, as usual, I am recovering all my coldness and calm. We are ready."
A better translation would be something like this: Until a few hours ago, I was feeling strong worry and anxiety, but now as "crunch time" (i.e. countdown/launch time, moment of truth, "It's showtime!", the big kick-off, etc) approaches, as usual, I am regaining my composure (becoming more "cool, calm and collected" -- as you would say in American English). We are ready.
If that sounds like sociopathology to you, then you're the one who needs your head examined.
The cost of electricity is already significantly lower than gasoline. The reason we don't all drive electric cars is they are too expensive and don't have sufficient range. If those factors were to change, everyone would switch to electric cars with or without cold fusion.
Another crackpot or scam artist catering to the terminally stupid. From some responses here, I gather there are a lot of those. Still, nothing even of remote entertainment or informational value.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The problem was that government officials and Teller were trying to Cover their asses and that is why that was put into the official document that went to washington.
Oppenhimer himself said that Teller, "lacked the sense to shut up" about it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
To extract energy from the zero-point vacuum, we must assume that it is a "false vacuum"...
No.
You must assume that since your argument is based upon that assumption. Neither I nor anyone else has to accept your assumption. Whether what you are trying to say is true or not, the way that it has been said is false and actually evil. It is an attempt to wrap a creed in the trappings of rational discussion, which in terms of lying is almost as bad as statistics.
My sister in law's favorite quote is appropriate here: "This isn't rocket science. Hell, this isn't even sociology."
For fission maybe, wouldn't fusion make it rematter?
Water covers most of the planet. Desalinization is mostly a problem of not enough energy. Food production also gets a lot easier if artificial lighting makes economic sense - you could literally build a skyscraper and grow food on every floor. Similar to what marijuana growers do when they bypass the electric meters.
And yet they went on to detonate it anyway, which pretty much sums up how the rest of the scientists viewed this extreme conclusion.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"What would you do if it were real?", build my own, obviously! What a stupid question.
I would invest cause I like magic beans!
We might even have a stab at world peace
As long as political power exists, world peace is logically impossible. How so? Because political power is founded on violence, the opposite of peace. All political power relies on a special "right" to employ violence (or threat thereof) as a business model. That special ability -- the legal ability to employ coercion in offense, not merely in defense -- is the core engine of everything government does. It is also the root of every war and genocide that has ever existed.
However I am well aware that political power is here to stay for at least the next 500 years. The world is light years away from giving birth to the first truly voluntary society, and that is no accident. If one actually did manage to form and gain a following, it would be immediately destroyed by the current world superpower.
So in conclusion, war is here to stay as long as government exists.
You mean retail price, not cost. The cost of gasoline is not related to crude barrel cost in USA, and heavily loaded by taxes in UK (for example). The cost of electricity generation is often discounted by government; best example being nuclear electricity generation which is priced artificially cheap.
The current post says no pictures taken because the company did not want to be ID. In particular, did not want engineers and testers to be shown. My guess is that the testers is another nationality and race: chinese. Therefore, it would show up easily on a pix that it was somebody from China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Throw the idiot in jail when it doesn't work.
Perpetual FAIL!
Go buy a bunch of incandescent light bulbs.
If this technology works, why bother with a 1 megawatt plant? Why wouldn't you build the equivalent of Bloom boxes and sell them to homeowners? Get rid of the grid entirely.
Infinite energy sounds like all energy problem are solve, does it? Now, think better. Energy is useful only if you transform it into work. What is work? Motion (that is generated by friction, so thermal loss, and that must be stopped by braking, which is almost total thermal loss), or heat (that ends up as thermal loss), or electronic gizmos that compute (almost complete thermal loss here too). Whatever energy we produce, it will end up as thermal loss, because thermal energy is a byproduct of using the energy.
As of now, we do not care about that aspect, because we use only 10^-7 energy units less that what earth receives as input from the sun. Now lets consider that we do, actually, have infinite energy, and use it. Then we will quickly reach the point were we produce some amount of energy that competes with solar input, say 2%. Does an increase of 2% of energy input on earth change the climate ? What about now a 10% increase (thats something like 5 years at exponential growth rate)?
And it is not like there is any comprehensive way to get rid of that extra thermal energy. There is no convection in space, and radiating in the void is the most inefficient way of dissipating energy. We could create convection by ejecting matter in space, but that does not sound practical (energy spent to put stuff in orbit is huge, probably more thermal loss than what the "payload" carries away from earth).
So basically, there is a stronger limit on possible energy consumption than the amount of energy we can produce, it is the thermal envelope of our atmosphere, that must remain somewhat constant to avoid disrupting the fine equilibrium that permits life (at least human life). Infinite energy does not solve the problem, it creates greater opportunities for us to multiply up to destroying ourselves.
http://youtu.be/RAbjI-0Mcpk
Hush, filter, I know there are many capitalized letters there. That's what was posted. I wonder how much must be said which is not capitalized before the caps filter will quit whining and let the original be posted the way that it should be posted. This much, apparently.
I know, it reads like I should be filling in blanks on fucking Star Trek, but I swear it's as accurate as my understanding of it.
For what it's worth, that is also my understanding of it. The binding energy that keeps the extra dimensions wrapped up in a Calabi-Yau manifold is not infinite, and if you could somehow exhaust it at a single point, you would end up with an 11-dimensional bubble expanding outwards at the speed of light from the point of failure. I believe this will be the eventual end to our universe, but it'll be long after heat-death.
Unless we figure out how to harness vacuum energy first.
I'll keep working as hard as I can.
Did you just get back from Occupy Wall Street?
Seastead this.
Well, no, the system isn't 100% perfect and nobody claimed it was. But your example is irrelevant as a criticism of peer review anyhow. It wasn't published in a peer reviewed journal and thus wasn't subject to peer review in the first place.
This has already happened. It's called the Casimir Effect. There are many ongoing attempts to devise a cavity structure for a MEMS device that produces a net directional force. Some have already been found (see the paper), but detailed calculations show that the energy extracted does not overcome the energy expanded due to frictional losses for the current designs. The design in Figure 2 was published in 1983, so this isn't exactly a new concept.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
The vast majority of the 7bn people, even if given 100% of their waking hours to study science (and prerequisite areas such as reading), would not be able to be "productive" in science as a result. Science, as most fields, is moved forward not as much by the number of people involved but by the intelligence and insight of the rare few who have the mental capacity and orientation to do what others with lesser capabilities didn't even consider.
If all 7 bn people studied science, we might end up with an additional 100x (or more) people vaguely literate in science (not a bad thing, but not something that will directly accelerate scientific progress significantly) but perhaps only 2x or 5x more "stars" who would actually advance science science more quickly.
All in all, it would be wasteful for everyone to learn science beyond their level of interest and capability - there are so many other things to do (drink beer, aspire to live in a nicer trailer park, wash one's 4WD baby every day on the front lawn, get one's mullet trimmed more often) that would be more productive for many.
For example, I'm pretty sure that given unlimited time to learn to play the violin, I might be able to earn a couple bucks a day in the subway. However, I would never be a "violinist's violinist" or be remotely qualified to play in any of the top ten symphony orchestras in the United States (let alone the world). Training me in violin would really contribute nothing to society at large except employ a fraction of an additional violin maker and slightly increase employment in the residential soundproofing materials market as a byproduct of my neighbors new soundproofing requirements.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Damn! I would buy that game!
If you have exponential growths in available energy, that leads to exponential growths in:
- Spaceflight potential (hell, it suddenly becomes a cinch to take a entire power station to the Moon or Mars and back - and while you're there look for fuel, etc.).
I am immediately going to being a campaing to save the gas giants. My God, in a thousand years, there will be nothing left of Jupiter!
Advice: on VPS providers
Nope. E=mc^2. If you're getting energy out, there's less matter left than when you started.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The world waits while the con man charges his huge Nickel metal hydride battery and then "turns it on".
No, he's right.
Your posts are incoherent, and since you pretend to know something about technical subjects, someone chastising you for your incoherence is not a douchebag.
The douchebag is the one who, when told of his unclear communication, does not adapt but blame the critic for his own failings.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
. . . the Singularity will stop it.
Is that the one for polarized products available for the special price of $19.95 (plus shipping & handling)?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
But IF it were true, I'd jump for joy, then fear the tech being misappropriated.
Alas, it's not to be. You see, God already perfected a nuclear fusion reactor for us - it's call the sun, and it doesn't operate at room temperature.
Some truly serious efforts being placed into solar technologies are what will ultimately be beneficial.
I should, merely, have responded:
WHOOSH!
So let me hereby make amends by so responding to you:
WHOOSH!
Seastead this.
I'm NOT ALLOWED to publish as I don't hold qualifications
Then publish in a double-blind venue. Those are the really credible ones anyway. The real problem is that your idea will be immediately rejected because you are not familiar enough with the field to show that your idea is both novel and useful. In other words, you think you have a good idea, but you don't really know. There are millions of people who think they have a good idea, but don't really know. If you want someone to listen, you have to set yourself apart somehow. Either learn the field, or get the qualifications.
By definition, the QM vacuum is the state with the lowest energy possible. If you want to extract energy from something, that something must lose energy and go to another, lower energy state. Therefore, if you want to extract energy from the vacuum, you are explicitly assuming that there is a state with an energy lower than that vacuum. This means that the new lowest energy state is your actual vacuum, and your previous "vacuum" was a local minimum or something like that (a "false vacuum").
So yes, if you want to extract energy from the "zero point vacuum", you MUST assume it is a false vacuum. If you don't, you'll want to extract energy from somewhere it's impossible to extract energy.
That a mop and bucket are his daily work colleagues?
Clearly, the best way to discuss falsification in science is to cast it as a discussion between a cannibalistic dictator and a strawman.
“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met” - Abraham Lincoln
"Stop...making...your...point...so...ineffectively!" - Phillip J. Fry
That's pre 7-11 thinking....
What this guy claims isn't unlikely, it's impossible.
If you are saying that cold fusion is impossible, and implying that is a scientific fact, then your post qualifies perfectly under the standard definition of pseudo science. Congratulations.
Here is a more complete list. I have left out entries like bozo the clown where the material has yet to be recognised as having any scientific merit by anyone, I also realise that many of these are still not the accepted scientific position.
Arrhenius (ion chemistry)
Alfven, Hans (galaxy-scale plasma dynamics)
Baird, John L. (television camera)
Bakker, Robert (fast, warm-blooded dinosaurs)
Bardeen & Brattain (transistor)
Bretz J Harlen (ice age geology)
Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan (black holes in 1930)
Chladni, Ernst (meteorites in 1800)
Crick & Watson (DNA)
Doppler (optical Doppler effect)
Folk, Robert L. (existence and importance of nanobacteria)
Galvani (bioelectricity)
Harvey, William (circulation of blood, 1628)
Krebs (ATP energy, Krebs cycle)
Galileo (supported the Copernican viewpoint)
Gauss, Karl F. (nonEuclidean geometery)
Binning/Roher/Gimzewski (scanning-tunneling microscope)
Goddard, Robert (rocket-powered space ships)
Goethe (Land color theory)
Gold, Thomas (deep non-biological petroleum deposits)
Gold, Thomas (deep mine bacteria)
Lister, J (sterilizing)
T Maiman (Laser)
Margulis, Lynn (endosymbiotic organelles)
Mayer, Julius R. (The Law of Conservation of Energy)
Marshall, B (ulcers caused by bacteria, helicobacter pylori)
McClintlock, Barbara (mobile genetic elements, "jumping genes", transposons)
Newlands, J. (pre-Mendeleev periodic table)
Nottebohm, F. (neurogenesis: brains can grow neurons)
Ohm, George S. (Ohm's Law)
Ovshinsky, Stanford R. (amorphous semiconductor devices)
Pasteur, Louis (germ theory of disease)
Prusiner, Stanley (existence of prions, 1982)
Rous, Peyton (viruses cause cancer)
Semmelweis, I. (surgeons wash hands, puerperal fever )
Steen-McIntyre, Virginia (southwest US indians villiage , 300,000BC)
Tesla, Nikola (Earth electrical resonance, "Schumann" resonance)
Tesla, Nikola (brushless AC motor)
J H van't Hoff (molecules are 3D)
Warren, Warren S (flaw in MRI theory)
Wegener, Alfred (continental drift)
Wright, Wilbur & Orville (flying machines)
Zwicky, Fritz (existence of dark matter, 1933)
Zweig, George (quark theory)
In many cases science is moved forward by accident, and in many other cases science is moved forward by thousands of hours of grunt work. While what you say is true for certain areas of science and certain discoveries in history, there are countless counter examples where sheer numbers would have made the discovery faster. We will always need gifted scientists, but having a billion non-gifted ones will advance science and saying that it wont is obviously wrong
Human population can't grow exponentially much longer.
It's surprise you admit that, since it's completely undercuts your point. This more than anything is the primary factor behind exponential growth in energy consumption.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Get one for my garage, of course.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If you're going to piss in the pool about running out of fuel for fusion power, have you ever stopped to consider that the big ball of fusion in the sky that powers most of your renewables (solar, wind, hydro) is also a finite fusion power source?
That ignores the other renewables, with geo being of course fission powered in earth's core (just as bad, lots less fuel there) and tidal being leftover gravitational energy/angular momentum from when we captured the moon and earth's orbit around the sun.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
People used to said the world was flat... Now we know it isn't...
Laws of physics are derived by people so they can be faulty and therefore if people say something can't because the laws of physics say so then they are wrong..
I'm not saying this is real, but I'm openminded to say that our understanding of physics is far from complete and therefore cannot explain a lot phenomena..
We only can hope this is real as it would solve a lot of energy problems.. (and ofcourse create others)
selfserving idiotic doublethink post
The consumption of those sources is limited, thus an exponential growth don't appear.
It appears that it may have actually worked, but at about 1/2 the expected output? https://twitter.com/#!/PESNetwork
"Q&A just finished; reading of results; 470 kW maintained continuously during self-sustain; customer satisfied; sale made; more later."
...will emerge as a new world superpower. I, for one, welcome our new Bulgarian overlords.
"PESWiki: 470 kW maintained continuously during self-sustain; customer satisfied; sale made; more later (E-Cat Test).".
See: http://goo.gl/r9BV1
CONGRATS ROSSI!!
Best option: It works and the world is saved. (odds 1/100)
Next best: It doesn't work and he gets no money after the Monty Python protection racket skit 'I won't hurt you if you don't pay me' (odds 19/20)
More likely: It doesn't work, but he still manages to collect money, perhaps from another investor providing seed money to build the prototype to collect the money from the 'big' investor. (odds 80/100)
It sure would be nice if the long shot wins.
Peswiki - Q and A just finished; reading of results; 470 kW maintained continuously during self-sustain; customer satisfied; sale made; more later.
I'm skeptical, but damn, I hope I'm wrong.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
I'm pretty sure there just aren't a billion people on the earth with the IQ and bent towards science to be useful - and, in fact, most of the billion will get in the way. The time spent training them, overseeing their work, and keeping them up to date by those who know what they are doing would be better spent by those who know what they are doing, well, doing.
I'm guessing that many software developers here can relate to this. If a mediocre developer who just doesn't "get it" somehow gets hired into a strong team (and, for some reason, doesn't get fired quickly), they usually result in the team getting less done than if the head count was left open. For example, instead of explaining to the mediocre developer for the third time the perils of double-checked locking (in whatever "creative" way the mediocre programer has obfuscated it this time), it's more efficient for the person doing the explaining to just design and implement whatever the mediocre programmer was tasked with.
Of course, smart teams sometimes figure out how to marginalize and ostracize mediocre developers and they leave of their own accord after a while regardless of what management wants but not all teams are sufficiently Machiavellian to execute this maneuver cleanly.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
The Mayans didn't say any such thing. Their freakin calendar ends in 2012. Ends like our calendar ends on Dec 31st every year. Does that mean the end of the world? No, our calendar starts over with January in the next year. So too does the Mayan calendar start over in a new cycle.
Exponential growth in population isn't necessary for exponential growth in energy consumption. It's enough for consumption per capita to be exponential.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_hydrogen_battery
http://www.e-catworld.com/2011/10/e-day-thread-rossis-1-mw-e-cat-plant-tested-by-first-customer/
Latest update:
18:06 GMT
From PESWiki: Q & A just finished; reading of results; 470 kW maintained continuously during self-sustain; customer satisfied; sale made; more later. – SilverThunder 11:07, 28 October 2011 (PDT)
Still no independent confirmation, but they SAY they did great...
Get a DeLorean
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
But the Mayans didn't publish their protocols!
It makes little difference whether or not Rossi destroys this planet. Earth is a classic type 13 which typically destroys itself at about this stage in it's development. Sometimes through war, often through environmental catastrophe, but more commonly a type 13 planet is unintentionally collapsed into a pea sized object through scientists trying to determine the mass of the Higgs Boson Particle.
The elephant in the room here is tax. A petrol driven vehicle's per-mile costs are FAR more expensive than just the fuel itself accounts for, because significant road taxes are integral to the price of the fuel. When they add road taxes to the cost of the charge that goes into an electric car, you'll find that the savings you thought you had have been deeply invaded. And you can be sure they will indeed add those taxes. Roads have to be paid for, and if you're not buying petrol... they're not going to let you get out of paying for the roads. Once that happens, there's going to a lot less difference in terms of dollar economy between the two types of vehicles.
I'm still all for electrics, because in the end, they *will* use less fuel (big generators are much more efficient than small ones, IC or otherwise) and we need that, and also because the vehicles become fuel-agnostic; nuclear, coal, whatever. Electrons are all that matter to the car, so we can change the underlying infrastructure at our convenience, which is an awesome benefit. So are independent all-wheel drive, huge torque, lower noise, better operating temp ranges, etc.
What we really need here are good ultracaps. And that still looks to be a few years out. They're improving, but it sure is a gentle curve. Still, when (if) they get near battery performance in terms of energy per space measure and (to a lesser extent) weight per energy measure, that'll change a whole lotta things for the better, from iPods to 18-wheelers and right on up to ocean going ships and spacecraft.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Wake me up when there is more than secret ingredients, secret buyers, secret third party consultants and media blackouts. Wake me up when any independantly verifiable information of any kind is released.
Water covers most of the planet. Desalinization is mostly a problem of not enough energy. Food production also gets a lot easier if artificial lighting makes economic sense - you could literally build a skyscraper and grow food on every floor. Similar to what marijuana growers do when they bypass the electric meters.
Ah. They probably wouldn't be caught as often if they stuck to building 2-3 story buildings, at least in residential areas.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
What most people don't realize about the Tesla is that it is built on a very small chassis. While it is certainly a high performance vehicle, it isn't even as practical as a present-day Camaro or Mustang. When you look at one in person, you get the impression of a slightly over-sized go-cart.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I am very skeptical. I have friends who have degrees in nuclear physics and this was my first choice for a career except when I saw the Fonda's in China Syndrome creating hysteria I decided to get into computer Science instead.
I know of no laws of physics that allow this gadget to work.
However this was also true when Einstein published his papers on special relativity. It took a generation of physicists to retire before that was proven. And as Richard Feynman said: There is plenty of room at the bottom as in we still have likely more to discover than we currently know.
Here is a reason the "customer" might not want to be known. Suppose it doesn't work. Politics says a major firm will walk away with egg on the face and no major firm wants this.
So we need to sit back and let these events unfold as they will. If it works then great. But it still does not solve a problem which has been solved in the 1960's through the 1990's This problem is the "spent fuel problem". There is enough energy sitting in the swimming pools on the current nuclear reactor sites to power our world for 1000's of years. Generation IV reactors like the molten salt reactor from Oak Ridge or the IFR which Argonne labs designed... either will burn that "spent fuel" and they can do this because the fuel is not "spent" at all. Its not waste. Its fuel.
These are tested designs and the physics is worked out and IMHO it is totally stupid to not be using them. It is totally fraudulent for the media and our governments to be totally misrepresenting the physics. Here is one example. I read in the papers that fuel reprocessing should not be allowed because:
The because is because of Plutonium. We can make bombs from Pu239. Well this is true. It is also true there is Pu239 in the "spent fuel". What is not told to the public is that there is also Pu240, Pu241 and Pu242 in that "spent fuel" and no one in their right mind would try to make a bomb with that stuff.
So what we should stop doing IMHO is enrichment because the main reason for this is to make bombs. Canada has the Candu and its proven and we don't need enrichment. We don't need to shut down NYSE:USU. I was a stock holder and made money. We need them to start doing reprocessing.
If we clean the crud from the "spent fuel" we can stuff it into Candu reactors and run them for 1000's of years. This is how we get rid of the nuclear "waste". At any time we can build the gen IV reactors.
But the thing is its still going to take a 1000's years to burn it and during this time there is going to be all the electricity our world needs flowing from these reactors.
If the e-Cat works then what? The nuclear industry dies and then who looks after the swimming pools.
In a way I hope the e-Cat doesn't work. I'd like to have one in my car and another heating my house but I think I would rather like to see a logical well thought out energy system which gets rid of the highly radioactive isotopes. This means fuel reprocessing and we shut down the enrichment industry because we already have too much.
According to their twitter feed, it worked:
PESNetwork PES Network, Inc. Q&A just finished; reading of results; 470 kW maintained continuously during self-sustain; customer satisfied; sale made; more later.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class, especially since I rule.
The one time in my life that I've really hallucinated was due to caffeine. Had *waay* too many cups of witches brew (that pot (or collection of pots) of coffee that's been on the burner all day at a cheapo greasy-spoon diner and has thickened up in the process). Went out driving with a friend (me in the passenger seat). Every time we passed a Mobil gas station, I got sucked through the big red "O". And not in a fun way. Got violently ill later and took an hour on the side of the road pacing before I felt like being in a car wasn't going to make me vomit.
Having so much caffeine as to kill you would be much less enjoyable than this. Starcraft would be infinitely preferable.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Yea, no fun indeed: Caffeine Intoxication
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Dear sir:
I regret to inform you that your credibility card has been revoked.
signed,
lolz
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
What fuel is being used, and how much is readily available?
WALSTIB!
There won't be any wreckage, because there was never a rocket-submersible. Only smoke and mirrors to convince gullible people to invest their money into Rossi's scam.
If someone actually did manage to stumble in to a way to do it. Nobody would believe them. Therefore even if it is scientifically possible, a legion of crackpots have made sure mankind will never achieve it.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Here is Rossi explaining today's result...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sZHOQ6P-Rw
(he sure does blink a lot)
Fun Fact: the mayan calendar cycle actually ends today, not dec 12 2012.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2498664&cid=37872868
I have been following this lightly for a while. On the one hand Rossi's history does not give confidence to this being real. On the other hand he doesn't seem to approach it like I would expect a scammer to approach it - he does get in touch with universities and professors, and he does not ask for money, even apparently financing the contruction of this 1 MW plant himself. Also holding a large-scale demonstration with big-name media present does not seem usual. If it is a hoax, I am not sure what he would get out of it besides publicity (being in the news).
There are 3 options: (1) it is a hoax/fraud, (2) he really believes it is true and cannot manage to do measurements correctly or is in some kind of denial and interprets the results incorrectly so they fit his beliefs, (3) it is true.
It is not clear whether this demonstration will make it clear. There have already been 11 other smaller-scale demonstrations and apparently there has never been conclusive evidence throughout all these. It also depends on who is vetting the test. There is someone from PESwiki there tweeting updates, tweeted "Q&A just finished; reading of results; 470 kW maintained continuously during self-sustain; customer satisfied; sale made; more later." and expects to post an article on the wiki/blog in the next hour or so. PESwiki historically has followed/reported on hundreds of bogus technologies. But the customer is satisfied? Who is the customer! Also an AP writer from NY is apparently attending the demo. However, a link to the likely writer says that he covers "telecommunications, consumer electronics, etc" for the AP, so it's not likely he is knowledgeable about energy technologies.
It will be very interesting to see the reports.
Here are the various semi-high-profile news articles about this technology that have recently been published, to collect them all in once place:
Forbes blog, Oct 28th
Wired, Oct 28th
Forbes blog, Oct 17th
Wired, Oct 6th
And then plenty of other sites like blogs and physorg since January of this year.
Wow, what a great idea! With these the normal way of spotting those operations by power usage is totally eliminated! Covert grow operations will be lining up to buy these in droves! DEA will have to buy a lot more dogs and thermal imaging equipment, since they won't be able to depend on the electric company to spot for them any more!!
Dogbert invented it first, followed by this press conference announcement.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Steorn yet.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Steorn
http://slashdot.org/story/06/08/21/173253/irish-company-claims-free-energy
http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/07/04/1628259/perpetual-energy-machine-getting-lots-of-attention
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/06/24/149247/steorns-free-energy-jury-comes-back-to-bite-them
Anyone taking the eCat too seriously should read a copy of Voodoo Science
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Voodoo_Science
Yea, no fun indeed: Caffeine Intoxication
Oo, rhabdomyolysis! What joy! Nothing quite like pissing your muscles away -- quite literally... Well, at least until the proteins block up your kidneys. :-P
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The definition of QM vacuum being used is inadequate for the current purpose, for it implies that there is at least one quantum state with a probability of 1, which would break quite a lot of the quantum mechanics model. I suspect that the definition was imported from some other aspect of the QM model where it works as well as centrifugal force works in classical physics. That is, as a convenient fiction that can sometimes be used within a specific context to hide a lot of unnecessary complexity that is not germane to the issue at hand. Those kinds of convenient fictions do not fare well when they are taken out of context and plugged in somewhere else.
To be blunt about it, do not confuse logic with reality, and theory with truth. Physics is a game of model building where the goal is to make new models that are closer to reality. But physics works only with models, it says nothing directly about reality. This is especially important in the quantum realms. Do not confuse the baubles of the QM model with the bight shines that we work so hard to observe.
Back closer to topic: Assume that the neutrinos are traveling at light speed and that there are no errors in measurement of time or locations. Then the question changes: How can the actual distance traveled by the neutrinos be longer than the calculated distance between the locations? Is there, perhaps, enough mass in between the two locations to curve space in such a way that the 'straight line' distance is 17 meters longer than it would be if the points were located in interstellar space?
Will
One thing is evident, Rossi does not have an interest in "convincing" anyone, he is also very bad at PR.
The "report" is laughable...the initial power required is simply ignored as not relevant.
The supporters say it's irrelevant how much the reactor needs to "heat up" since the initial heat-up it would only be required each 6 months. The power required initially would become irrelevant - compared to the power produced over time.
Problem: We have not seen an ecat running days, weeks, let alone a MONTH. The just released report does not even mention the initial power needed to heat the steam/device (from 10am to 12:30 am, until the reactor was "turned on").
To make things worse, it has been reported that in the "test" they had a 500kw biodiesel generator connected and RUNNING, of course claiming it was not supplying power. But it was connected and running. How foolish is that?
This is understandably a very controversial subject (heck, Rossi even used terms like "over-unity")..so the "world" can expect some better evidence than words and claims...such extraordinary claims certainly need extraordinary care, measurements, careful proof...and not what we have seen labeled as "proof", including today's report.
So..if people keep being skeptical...they have any right to do so because Rossi didn't do a lot to convince us that what he has is in fact working...and yes he could very well be a scam artist...or being delusional, fooling himself and the rest of the world. Sad.
well put. I hope it is real, even with the sad wall of cynicism I've erected around myself.
I think a priority should be put on consuming that "wate fuel", just for public safety.
From the light reading I've encounter, there is another nuclear waste problem - materials used for handling radioactive fuel and waste. The Straight Dope, at least, asserts that the majority of bulk radioactive waste is this sort. The highly radioactive spent fuel is, by bulk, the smaller problem.
I would love a world where contaminated shoes, gloves and wrenches could be turned into electricity. I don't see that happening, and this mountain of junk is part of the legacy of the conventional nuclear industry.
Ahem. Apologies are in order.
I had to take a phone call while writing the above reply, and I now see that I had lost track of which thread I was in. The main points I made are valid, but I confused this thread with the one about the neutrinos.
Will
paraphrasing: 'The same thing we do every night, Pinky..' lol
Yes, but HOW do the huge magnetic spirals WORK?
If it turns out to be real I'll be glad to donate a small chunk of cash in recognition of doing some "science out of the box". If it is a scam, then I'll laugh my ass off... I'm on pins and needles...
This Anonymous Coward guy could be onto something! I've heard the rain in Spain falls mainly on the electromagnetic plan.
Well, the first part of your prediction came true. They are claiming it generated 473 kW for 5.5 hours in self-looping mode. Not near 1 MW, as you predicted.
http://pesn.com/2011/10/28/9501940_1_MW_E-Cat_Test_Successful/
I'll believe this one when Al-Jazeera starts picking it up...
We are the 198 proof..
Teancum does a great job of explaining the gaps that make those to understand this field very skeptical, but keeps as much of a open mind as someone can considering what this is all about.
I will say however, I am continually suprised by the number of scientist from NASA and other "groups" who I either get to talk to or I see speak who seem rather opptimistic about this project.
Quite a curiousity, and exciting to speculate about.
Space flight is limited by fuel, not energy. Except if we build a space elevator/giant railgun wich may or may not be possible.
Fuel is stored energy. If energy were free, we'd be able to have floating platforms (like Shield from Marvel comics, or so many other super-villan stories) and launch at much higher altitudes, reducing the needs for fuel, and the fuel would be cheaper to make because the energy to make it is free.
Food and water can't be produced by energy. Human population can't grow exponentially much longer.
What is "desalinization" and why is it currently constrained by the cost of energy? And are you really so proud of the fact you've never heard of a greenhouse and grow-lights? "I'm stupid so your ideas can't work!"
You are assuming we find a way around the second law of thermodynamics.
Nope, there's nothing in it that violates the laws of thermodynamics. Just because you can't understand someone doesn't make them wrong. It makes you wrong, and then doubly stupid for publicly calling them on it with your inanity.
Learn to love Alaska
Space flight is limited by fuel, not energy. Except if we build a space elevator/giant railgun wich may or may not be possible.
What about Ion thrusters and vasimir rockets. They are limited by power. Our current rockets are mostly fuel limited cause thats easier to produce and carry than energy generation. Proper fusion would solve that.
Food and water can't be produced by energy. Human population can't grow exponentially much longer.
Food certainly can be grown using energy, no idea why you think it can't. And the planet is covered by water only limited by use of energy. You could move farming indoors if you had energy no problem.
You are assuming we find a way around the second law of thermodynamics.
No idea why you think we need to break thermodynamics to use fusion or other methods to extract energy from matter.
"The space elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke ~1980
http://pesn.com/2011/10/28/9501940_1_MW_E-Cat_Test_Successful/
"Power for start-up (resistive coils that provided heat to the reaction chambers) was provided by the large and loud genset you see [in the video] that is nearly as large as the small shipping container in which the 1 MW E-Cat plant was arranged. Once the reaction chambers got up to temperature, they were maintained by the heat produced by the reaction. I'm not sure why they kept the generator running after that, but I would guess it was for back-up or safety."
Yes, of course.
"The biggest opening for skeptics will be the continually running genset that is probably rated for 500 kW (my guess), and appears to have been connected by cables to the E-Cat."
Oh, come on!
"It ran for 5.5 hours producing 470 kW"...
Well, he convinced the customer and made the sale, so I guess we'll know soon if it really works or not (assuming it's a real customer).
What about Ion thrusters and vasimir rockets. They are limited by power. Our current rockets are mostly fuel limited cause thats easier to produce and carry than energy generation. Proper fusion would solve that.
The biggest problem with space exploration is getting stuff from the surface to orbit, and ion and all other alternative thrusters are far too weak for that. Not because of energy, space probes have onboard nuclear reactors. We need fuel because of the conservation of impulse.
Food certainly can be grown using energy, no idea why you think it can't. And the planet is covered by water only limited by use of energy. You could move farming indoors if you had energy no problem.
Sure, you can build desalination plants. On the seashores where they already have more than enough rain. And farming requires water.
No idea why you think we need to break thermodynamics to use fusion or other methods to extract energy from matter.
I didn't say fusion was impossible, in fact, I was posting about what would happen were it possible. But parent suggested that we might discover a way of converting matter directly to energy, based on a misunderstanding of special relativity.
I would advise the inventor and his crew to hide and hire body-guards.
I would conclude that you can tell the truth by taking a poll, and that would make me very scared, indeed.
Umm, the Mayans said Dec 21 2012, not Dec 12, 2012. That is what a squatting guy, a jaguar, running water and a Sun mean in Mayan, you ass hat.
http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article3303817.ece/BINARY/Updated%20analysis%20Ecat%20Oct%206%20Roberson%20%28pdf%29
New in-depth analysis from Ny Teknik:
Thanks for the link. If I had mod points, I would have appreciated your contribution thusly.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Its the 30 have heard nothing else.
It's the definition of a false vacuum. It's axiomic.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If you're going to use physics to argue in favour of something, you must accept physics as a counter-argument. The incompleteness of modern physics is reason to disbelieve the idea of extracting energy from the vacuum, just as much as it's reason to believe in the the same idea.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Blacklight Power, an alternative energy research company, has replicated the Rossi H-Ni reactor and is letting Rowan University test the output: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfjOIoPwolg The list of co-conspirators is growing! - Brad
According to the discovery article, "[Sterling Allan] told FoxNews.com that Paul Swanson with the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems unit (SPAWAR) can vouch for the demonstration." Also, "FoxNews.com spoke with a man at SPAWAR who identified himself as Swanson, and who said only that he was "not in a position to talk to the press." Several other sources within the Navy and the Pentagoneither declined to comment or did not return messages."
Discovery, like myself, is still skeptical. However, if it's true someone from the SPAWAR was there, it's possible there's something to it.