LENR as a new energy source?

[salbers]

Here is some discussion about one potential solution.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-h-bailey/interview-with-andrea-ros_b_8248624.html

[sidd]

i distrust this

[Neven]

i distrust this

I'm surprised this is still ongoing, as Ugo Bardi took the whole thing apart quite convincingly a couple of months ago. 3 billion USD in pre-orders, I read? That has got to be BS.

[jai mitchell]

Isotopic analysis of the copper (supposedly) output of the nuclear reaction showed that the balance of copper isotopes had the same abundance ratios as natural copper, created 6 billion years ago in the furnace of an exploding star, not by a charlatan snake oil salesman.

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/12/05/the-nuclear-physics-of-why-we/
The Physics of why the e-Cat’s Cold Fusion Claims Collapse
Posted by Ethan on December 5, 2011

    A sample of the claimed products of the reaction was made available, which contained some nickel powder, but about 10% of the sample was copper, claimed to be completely generated from an initial sample that was 100% nickel.

Right here, this very site claimed that these results were probably faked, and now we’re going to show you the physics of why these claims are definitely untrue.

Image generated using the free graphing software at nces.ed.gov.

There are five known stable isotopes of Nickel, and here on Earth they are found in the percentages shown in the chart above. These isotope ratios are the same on Earth as they are in meteorites and in the Sun, and are pretty universal to any sample of nickel naturally found here on Earth.

If you want to create copper from any of these elements by adding a proton (hydrogen nucleus) to them, here are the reactions you’re looking for:

    58Ni + 1H → 59Cu*,
    60Ni + 1H → 61Cu*,
    61Ni + 1H → 62Cu*,
    62Ni + 1H → 63Cu*,
    64Ni + 1H → 65Cu*.

That doesn’t look so prohibitive, does it? Of course, there is the fact that you’ve got to overcome the tremendous Coulomb barrier (the electrical repulsion between nickel and hydrogen nuclei), which — according to our knowledge of nuclear physics — requires temperatures and pressures not found naturally anywhere in the Universe. Not in the Sun, not in the cores of the most massive stars, and (to the best of our knowledge) not even in supernova explosions!

From both an astrophysics and a nuclear physics standpoint, we can conclude that these reactions are not happening, and that they’re certainly not happening at the incredibly low energies claimed by the e-Cat team. Let’s look at the astrophysics first.

[salbers]

Seems like an incomplete refutation, since the LENR theory is that lattice effects are different from what goes on in stars.

[andy_t_roo]

Low energy fusion must be a hoax unless completly new science is invoked.

Fusion happens when nuclei get close enough for the nuclear force to become attractive.
That occurs at approximately^ 10^-15 mm ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_force)
Atoms themselves are approximately 10^-10m in size, and the electrostatic force from the positive charge of the nucleus repells based on distance ^-2
Therefore the the repulsive force to be overcome to achieve fusion is at least 10^10 times stronger than the influence of the next nearest atom.  (low temperatures in a solid = spacing of atoms at more than 10^-10m apart)

Ie,  the only way to get fusion is for(at least)  one of the particles to be moving fast enough to overcome this barrier, and other atoms in the (chemically distant)  vicinity have no significant effect. Fast=hot.

Hydrogen fusion is actually the easiest fusion to do, and we can't even do that in a sustained manner at the moment.

[Neven]

But they have 3 billion USD in pre-orders, without a professional, corporate web presence, so it must be true. And they've built thousands of protoypes, three every day, several years in a row.

[jai mitchell]

isotopic abundances in natural material have discreet levels for different isotopes with varying decay rates.  For instance, you won't find plutonium naturally anywhere on the earth since its decay rate is so fast.  Similarly, if a fusion reaction produced copper isotopes, then you would find shorter-lived isotopes that are not found in nature.  Sadly, that is not the case with this technology.

The claims appear to be patently false and any assertion of orders or working prototypes are either lies or the result of deceived investors.

[Timothy Astin]

He has attracted significant funding from Cherokee Investment Partners and from Woodford Investment Management in the last few months.

I suppose they feel the risk reward ratio is favourable. One of the investors thinks he is clear sighted enough to know it is more than likely to be a blind alley, but if it is not ...

http://www.fusenet.eu/node/991

[salbers]

isotopic abundances in natural material have discreet levels for different isotopes with varying decay rates.  For instance, you won't find plutonium naturally anywhere on the earth since its decay rate is so fast.  Similarly, if a fusion reaction produced copper isotopes, then you would find shorter-lived isotopes that are not found in nature.  Sadly, that is not the case with this technology.

The claims appear to be patently false and any assertion of orders or working prototypes are either lies or the result of deceived investors.

On the other hand, there are supposedly isotopic shifts going on:

http://www.e-catworld.com/2014/12/13/rossi-e-cat-energy-comes-from-isotopic-shifts-which-is-not-fusion/

http://www.elforsk.se/Global/Omv%C3%A4rld_system/filer/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf (see section eight)

[salbers]

There is this new arxiv paper that gives a description of a newer LENR device and the theory behind it.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.05249.pdf

[crandles]

Energy Catalyser run its course, made $11.5m for Rossi from dumb investment company. Time to do it again with something else? ugggg

[DrTskoul]

Energy Catalyser run its course, made $11.5m for Rossi from dumb investment company. Time to do it again with something else? ugggg

That is their goal.  If you see someone going from failed startup to another you know there is a scam brewing...

[Neven]

They must have at least 6 billion USD in pre-orders now.

[salbers]

Anyone care to comment more on the science and experimental procedure in the arxiv paper (reply #10)?

This could be a scam, though I've yet to be convinced that all the other replicators and researchers reporting excess energy are also scams.

[Neven]

I stopped reading after the words Andrea Rossi, but I must admit that if I had continued to read, I wouldn't have understood any of the science either.

[sidd]

I just wasted some time on that paper. They posit a new long range nuclear force, and quote their own experiment as evidence. I believe none of it.