Ladies and Gentlemen, the QUA[R]CK-X!

LenrForum:

Demonstration thread started November 15Start reading here, Alan posted before the DPS (Dog and Pony Show) started.

E-Catworld:

Youtube:

3 hours. As I write this, I have not yet viewed more than a little of it. I will be compiling links to specific times in this video, and will appreciate assistance with that. Above, by the headline and by “DPS”, I reveal my ready conclusion. I will be providing a basis for that, but, meanwhile, fact is fact and we need be careful not to confuse fact with conclusion.

Test methods

From this page:

Here are the slides that Mats Lewan used in the first segement of the E-Cat QX demonstration of November 24, 2017 in which he gave an introduction to the E-Cat QX and explained how the presentation was to proceed.

Unless he hedged this in the actual presentation (and I will edit this if I find that he did), Mats is responsible for this content.

Slide 1:

E-CAT QX

Third generation of the patented E-Cat technology:
A heat source built on a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR)
with a fuel based primarily on nickel, aluminum, hydrogen and
lithium, with no radiation and with no radioactive waste.

The fuel is “Rossi Says” [* is used below] “No radiation” is possibly controversial: many tests, however, have looked for radiation and found little or none.

Claims E-Cat QX:

I have numbered the claims, and brief comments:

1. volume ≈ 1 cm3 [plausible]
2. thermal output 10-30 W [plausible as dissipation in device]
3. negligible input control power [* not plausible]
4. internal temperature > 2,600° C [* unlikely]
5. no radiation above background [plausible]

Today: Cluster of 3 E-Cat QX

Slide 2: (diagram, shows water circulation)

Water reservoir -> K-probe  -> QX -> K-probe -> Water tank on scale

(This looks simple and solid. While a magician or fraud, given control of conditions, can create fake anything, if there is fraud here, it is probably not in this part of the test.)

Slide 3: (calculations)

Thermal output
W = mwater* Cp* ∆T
Cp water = 4.18 J/(g·K)
Pav = W/t

W is, misleadingly but harmlessly, in a common confusion in Rossi presentations, not wattage but energy, in watt-seconds or Joules. Average power, in watts, is then is the energy divided by the measurement interval.

Slide 4:

Thermal output

(diagram, QX light -> spectrometer)

Wien’s displacement law:
λmax = b/T or T = b/λmax
where b ≈ 2900 μm·K
Stefan–Boltzmann law:
P = AεσT4
where
A = area
ε = emissivity
σ ≈ 5.67 × 10−8 W/(m2⋅K4)

This is BS. The QX is allegedly a plasma device, and light from a plasma does not follow the laws for black-body radiation. Light can appear to be intense but the energy will be in narrow bands, characteristic of the plasma gas. This approach simply does not work. However, it is not actually a significant part of the test. A very small spot can be very hot, that does not show high overall power if the very hot region is small, with low mass, and, as well, if it is transient.

(Mats in the video claims that the device is “similar to a black body,” but no evidence is provided for that claim.)

Slide 5: (schematic diagram)

Electric input. [explanation at video 11:28)

Shown is AC line power (unmeasured) feeding a Direct Current source (the symbol for DC is used), incorporating a fan, “active cooling ca. 60 W”. Then the DC output is connected to a 1 ohm sense resistor, and there is a voltmeter across it. Then the other side of the resistor is connected to one terminal of the QX. There are two labels, overprinted, “0 Ω” and “800 Ω.” This refers to two conditions, the zero resistance is to test conditions, allegedly, and the 800 ohms is a Lewan “test” which shows essentially nothing. The other side of the QX returns to the power supply.

I = U/R
P = UI
P = RI2
800 * 0.252 ≈ 50 W

This is utter nonsense. There is no reported measurement of the “power input” to the QX. This is the same preposterousness as was in the Gullstrom paper, widely criticized. What is “U”? Unstated. Perhaps it is in the videos. By the formula it is a voltage, the voltage used to determine the current through the 1 ohm sense resistor. If I is then that current, “P” would be the power dissipated in the sense resistor. The figure of 800 is used, but this is not under test conditions, the QX has been replaced by the 800 ohm resistor. So there is, from the power supply, 50W of power delivered to an 800 ohm resistor, apparently. This means what? It means about 200 V, that’s what!

Mats says in the video that the white box is the power source. Then he says it is a black box. Well, Mats? Which is it, white or black? He describes it as producing “direct current, which is pulsed.” That is quite different from “direct current,” depending on details. Mats says that the 1 ohm resistor is not necessary for the function of the generator. Yet, in operation, the resistance of the QX is described as zero. These descriptions have driven many who know a little electronics crazy. Yes, the 1 ohm resistor is a sense resistor, used only to measure current, but if the QX resistance is actually zero, nothing would limit current other than the supply max, and there would be no control.

The QX is a plasma device. Such devices have high resistance until a plasma is struck. It appears from the video that a plasma is repeatedly struck. At that point the voltage to the QX must be high. There will then be a short period when input power to the QX is high, until the resistance drops and input power with it. Zero resistance is quite unlikely. There is no evidence shown in the video of zero resistance, but the largest missing is any actual measure of input power.

At 13:22, Lewan explains the Rossi insanity that the heat of the reactor is conducted through the cables to the power supply, causing destruction of components. Later, on ECW, Lewan reports that Rossi is “no longer” giving this explanation. But why did he believe it in the first place?

This is said to explain the cooling fan for the power supply.

I later said, during the presentation, that Rossi no longer claims the heating problem is due to heat through the wires, but an internal heating problem in the control box. Fulvio Fabiani, who has built the original design of the control system, confirmed this, and said that it would need investments to and resources to build a control system that eliminates this problem. I agree that this seems strange. However, high voltage, high frequency, and high velocity might be challenging, combined.

The power supply is creating an output with substantial high voltage and frequency, but nothing shown as input to the reactor is high voltage or frequency. There is no consideration in the input power discussion of anything other than direct current, at low voltages.

It is obvious: there is high-frequency power being generated, and there is indirect evidence in the demo that this is roughly enough to explain the reported output power. I was discussing this today with David French, and he said that a test with forbidden measurements of a factor that might be crucial is not a test. He’s obviously correct.

If Rossi were a reliable reporter, we might decide to trust his reports. But there is voluminous evidence in Rossi v. Darden that he is not reliable. For as long as I have been following Rossi (since early 2011), he has put on one demonstration after another where some critical factor was hidden. With some of his early E-Cat demos, it was claimed that the cooling water was all vaporized, that the output was “dry steam,” but a humidity meter was used to verify this, and humidity meters cannot measure steam dryness. The physicists observing these tests had no steam experience and were easily fooled. In the Krivit video, Rossi clearly knows that there is condensed or overflow water in the output hose, because he walks it to the drain before pulling the hose out to show Krivit the steam flow, which was completely inadequate for the claimed evaporation rate. And that little demonstration concealed that water was slowly overflowing, and overflow was never checked. (Overflow is a different and larger concern than steam quality; steam quality itself was a red herring.)

In discussions on LENR Forum, THHuxleynew wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

[…] The 800 ohm resistor was used as part of the calibration demonstration. Since the Q-X has virtually zero resistance there is not much point in measuring the voltage drop across it, so in order do show that (for example) an 800 ohm resistive heater was NOT present inside the Q-X capsule, the Q-X was taken out of circuit and a low-wattage 800 ohm resistor was put in its place. The voltage drop was measured again over the 1 ohm resistor to show there was a significant difference. This also was used to prove that the PSU was a constant voltage device, not a constant current device.

Anyone with substantial electronics experience would know how crazy-wrong this is. You don’t know that a device has “virtually zero resistance” unless you measure the voltage drop across it at a known current. The resistance of quite good conductors can be measured this way.

In any case, one would measure the voltage across the QX to verify that it is low (or “zero” as claimed, which is very unlikely for a plasma device.) Who there has experience with plasma devices? I played with neon tubes when I was young, great fun. Yes, they show “negative resistance,” i.e., the more current that flows through them, the lower the resistance, but zero? This is a major discovery all of its own, if true. It almost certainly is not. But the resistance of the QX might well be very low, because it is not the resistance of a plasma device, but of an inductor.

The test does not show what Alan claims for it. An ordinary 800 ohm resistive heater was not a reasonable possibility. With no measurement of voltage, this is all meaningless. The power supply is said to be “adaptive,” so conditions for the QX test and the 800 ohm resistor could be different. There was no description of what was actually done. The power measured with 800 ohms, from calculations was 50 W, which would certainly not be a “low wattage” resistor. But then there is more:

That is a weirdly indirect way of showing the QX has a low impedance. Also it is likely wrong! What was the 800 ohm resistor cal current? You also can’t prove CV from a single measurement.

only Rossi would give such indirect and dubious evidence… Why not measure the PSU voltage directly?

Sekrit, that’s why!

THHuxleynew wrote:

Also, these voltage measurements, are they DC or AC? And is the supply DC or AC? Without all these questions answered the word prove that Alan uses is way off beam… Impedance is not a single value independent of frequency. Nor is the QX likely linear.

Indeed. Alan’s response?

Alan Smith wrote:

The QX is stated to have near zero resistance. Which tends to suggest it has near zero impedance. Though after 5 beers I am not looking for an argument about that. Have at it.

After 5 beers, it gets worse.

THHuxleynew wrote:

[…] Suppose it has low resistance when in plasma state but high resistance when off. Driven by AC it would have varying impedance, and maybe absorb much power during these HV spikes some believe exist.

Or, take an inductor in parallel with a resistor. Low impedance at DC, high resistance at AC.

Perhaps I need to drink some more wine to even things up…

He’d have to drink a lot to approach Alan’s dizziness….

Oldguy points to the obvious: [To Alan]

Was the 800 ohm resister inductive or non inductive?

I am still having trouble with the claim that the claim that the device has “virtually zero resistance”.

Was it measured while running? How was that measured for the system as demonstrated?

Sure seem like there IS a “point in measuring the voltage drop across it”. A major point. It is possible to have a device with a low DC resistance but high inductive impedance. If there was any pulses or AC present, it could make a very big difference. -(example: a wire coil around some Ni) If It is to demonstrate the reality of excess then the voltage needs to be measured across with what ever waveform it is running with.

One would think. But Rossi certainly does not think like this. Unless he does. Unless he figured out  a way to make it appear, to those who don’t look or think carefully, that he is putting on low power, when he is putting in much more, there in plain sight and actually obvious and even necessary.

Alan Smith wrote: (about Oldguy’s “device”)

Tell me about this device? A choke perhaps? I think you will struggle to find me a good example.

Weird, indeed, probably the beers talking. He said the word: “choke.” That’s an example.

Oldguy also wrote:

No, again, you can have near zero DC resistance but have a large inductive impedance to high frequency (or spikes). The narrower the pulses the greater the “effective resistance” for an inductive device. […]

A simple wire coil with a nickel or cobalt core would do it. For example, a 10 mH inductor, would appear to have near zero resistance (depending on gauge) but about 4 ohms at 60 Hz and 7.5 ohms at 120 Hz and then about 160 ohms at 2500 Hz. Very fast pulses (single wave of a very high freq in effect) would make the effective R very high and with power going as V^2 you could transfer a significant power. A flyback transformer, cap and a read vibrator could easily be put in the housing of most DC supplies to add high V pulses.

Bottom line – the DC and AC across the device must [be] measured while running or you know nothing about possible power consumption.

Yes. The DPS pretends otherwise, and Mats Lewan, while he is aware of the massive deficiencies, goes along with it. It does not appear that Rossi invited anyone likely to question his claims. Mats seems to be on some kind of edge. Yet, in the end, he’s been had.

THHuxleynew:

All these (dubious even at DC) indirect measurements are no good if the PSU is AC, or has HV AC spikes.

Rossi, remember, has a proven (by Mats, of all people) history of mismeasuring things with meters to show positive COP from devices that are actually electric heaters.

Adrian Ashfield wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

Tell me about this device? A choke perhaps? I think you will struggle to find me a good example.

The pathoskeptics are just looking for a way to back up their previous firmly held opinions. I doubt you can win against hem short of units for sale.

Even if the setup were perfect they would say the readings were false, or there’s hidden battery, etc, etc. The current and voltage appears to be low enough that would be very difficult claim measurement error would wipe away a COP of 300.

Ashfield has shown again and again that he is utterly clueless. There are certainly pseudoskeptics who will not accept even good evidence, but they are matched by pseudoscientists (i.e., “believers”) who assume what they want without evidence. Here, Ashfield has nothing to contribute to the conversation, but still bloviates about what he has no understanding of.

Genuine skeptics (people like THHuxleynew) are very important for the future of LENR, because they can form the bridge. Genuine skeptics are willing to look at evidence and not dismiss it out-of-hand.

As to Ashfield’s claim, input power was not measured, and easily could be enough for a COP of 1. I.e., no excess power. Mats Lewan even points this out:

‘I think the demonstration today went well, with some limits that depends on what Rossi will accept to measure publicly. The problematic part is that the voltage over the reactor could not be measured, which would be necessary to calculate the electric power consumed by the reactor. In the calculations made by Rossi and Eng. William S. Hurley, who oversaw the measurements, the power consumed by the 1-ohm resistor was used as input power instead, assuming that the plasma inside the reactor has a resistance close to that of a conductor, thus consuming a negligible amount of power since the voltage across the reactor would be very low.

(“could not be measured” because Rossi would not allow it. Then it is claimed that it was “very low,” but the evidence for this is entirely missing. They don’t even try. The power dissipated in the 1 ohm sense resistor would be irrelevant, having almost no relationship to the QX input power. That only shows DC current, not power input, even at DC, and no attempt was made to measure RMS power, and there was very substantial RMS power, it’s obvious.)

[…] it seems strange that the power supply, even if it is a complex design, is such that it needs significant active cooling, resulting in a total system that has a COP of about 1 or less at this point.

That power supply needs cooling because it is generating high voltage pulses to strike the plasma, and with no measurement of these (and it seems that the pulsing was frequent), there is no clue as to input power, but it easily could be enough to explain the “output” power.

William S. Hurley III

Sam provided a list of comments on JONP from Hurley.  It came from LENR Forum, Bill H.  (There appear to be many more comments from Hurley there.) There is speculation about Hurley on LENR Forum, with people doing a search, finding a William Hurley, and then saying that this is the DPS engineer. No. There is more than one Hurley, that much I had. I suspect the DPS Hurley lives in Huntington Beach, California, but I haven’t yet seen any strong evidence. However, his alleged company name, somewhere (I think in Lewan information), was spelled Endeavor. From the JONP comments, it is Andeavor. $6 billion in assets. Web site.

Bruce H wrote:

Alan Smith wrote:

He is Willam Hurley, an engineer who works in the oil business. That’s what he told me. At the beginning of the demo he was introduced as an an ‘overseeing expert’. But he was pretty low key for that role. nodding now and then was most of it.

Thanks. I think he probably has the background he claims. My interest is in his role in the proceedings. One thing that has puzzled me is that a summary of COP calculations was sent to Mats Lewan and then posted on ECW over his name (http://e-catworld.com/2017/11/…comments-from-mats-lewan/), and yet this report is written in Rossi-ese complete with “Wh/h” notation and slightly ungrammatical English.

He strikes me as a pawn who was under the impression that he had an important role in the proceedings, but in reality did not.

I pointed out the Wh/h trope yesterday. There is a history behind this. I once pointed to Rossi’s usage of Wh/h for power as a “trope.” That did not  mean “error.” It is simply relatively rare, i.e., idiosyncratic. I’ve researched it fairly deeply, it may be more common in Europe, and I think Jed said some Japanese use it. I have never seen an American engineer or scientist use this.

In my training, we always reduced units. Working with units like that is an important part of learning science and engineering.

Wh is watt-hour, i.e., 1 watt for one hour. The SI unit is joules/second, but the definition of a joule is one watt-second, i.e., one watt for one second. So an alternate unit for energy is watt-second, and watt-hour is common. The unit for power is simply “watt.”

I explained all this maybe a year ago. Rossi commented on it, claiming it was completely wrong, and his treatment showed that he thinks of “watt-hour” as a unit of energy, and that then power is the obvious rate, watt-hours/hour. He claimed the “hour” cannot be cancelled, and for further discussion, he referred to an well-known book author. I researched this issue in that author’s work, and found that he confirmed that the “hour” would cancel out. I.e., Rossi’s source contradicted Rossi. Rossi never, however, admits error.

It was not the use of wh/h that was wrong, that would be a pedantic objection. Rather it was his claim that “watt” or “kilowatt” was wrong.

(By the way, Rossi called the Plant the “1 MW E-cat.” Not the “1 MWh/h E-cat.”)

The point was not that Wh/h was incorrect, but that this was a red flag that this was not written by an American engineer, unless he was copying Rossi.

There is another clear sign: the company name spelling “Endeavor” is in that text, linked by Bruce H, taken from ECW. Hurley would not make that mistake. Period. Rossi would, easily. Rossi wrote that report. Hurley may have approved it, but even there, I’d expect the Endeavor error would have stood out for him and he’d have corrected it.

Alan Smith wrote:

Bruce_H wrote: “Wh/h”

Don’t start this again or we will have MY banging on about it. Wh/h is power supply engineer shorthand for the sustained load a system can handle. It is however not a recognised SI or Imperial unit of measurement.

Alan doesn’t want accurate information expressed because MY will jump on it? His comment may be misleading, or may be accurate for Great Britain, where he lives. However, “Wh/h” is not how a power supply engineer would express the load a system can handle. They would either state that it can handle X Watts for time T. Or they would state that the system can deliver so many Wh, but they would want to state peak load. Another way to say this is that a supply can sustain a load of so many watts (time not specified, and time is not specified in Wh/h, it’s an average). “Sustained” in this case is about what the supply will do without burning out. It’s a rating.

Bruce_H wrote:

I agree completely. I only use it as an indicator that that it was not Mr Hurley who wrote the report that appears over his name.

This is the DPS Hurley.

Tesoro Senior Project Engineer, Tesoro Petroleum Corp.

(Tesoro became Andeavor, August 1, 2017.)

This is also Hurley, engineer for a radio license with an address given for Tesoro in Huntington Beach., 2101 E PACIFIC COAST HWY, LOS ANGELES, WILMINGTON, CA. Mr. Hurley has a boat.

If it were important, we could contact Mr. Hurley. It’s not. We know what data he worked with, and if he made a mistake, as we think, it is no skin off our teeth. He should know, however, that he is hitching his reputation to a known fraud and con artist.

I finally found his Linked-In profile. It’s listed under Bill Hurley. (there are many of these.) Behold:

 

Mr. Hurley has a decent background. However, he has a conflict of interest. Considering the above, he would want, at this point, to encourage Rossi to deal with him. He gains no benefit by being skeptical in his analysis, as long as he is honest with his employer, and he would know, if he’s researched Rossi history, that any sign of significant skepticism, he’d be history in the Rossi story.

If Andeavor actually buys a reactor — or power — from Rossi, this would become very, very interesting. Otherwise, this is SOP for Rossi.

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

See http://coldfusioncommunity.net/biography-abd-ul-rahman-lomax/

26 thoughts on “Ladies and Gentlemen, the QUA[R]CK-X!”

  1. Abd – just a note that Sam’s comment at http://coldfusioncommunity.net/ladies-and-gentlemen-the-quarck-x/#comment-5664 and what appears to be your reply are both missing. IIRC this comment was about Hurley’s comments on JONP.

    It looks reasonable that Hurley both runs an oil company and would like to buy some cheap electricity to run it. I have friends who just don’t understand electronics and would simply accept what someone told them about how to measure electrical power, so though he may understand the oil business well he may be simply accepting what Rossi tells him about this. A lucky find for Rossi….

    1. Thanks. Tako Movable Comments is broken. Too bad. I’m going to move them back to where they were posted. They should then be visible. (I can see them in the comment listing from the dashboard, and I can see them when I edit the page they are on, but … not in ordinary non-edit page view.

      Moved them back. Still invisible. Sam had simply copied material from LENR Forum. I’m going to bed, I’ll look at this tomorrow.

  2. This demo was about as convincing at trying to boil a cup of water using a powerbank. Less convincing in fact. Assuming a scam…the PSU is a regular PSU/Signal generator, the 1-Ohm resistor…well it would actually be so easy to repaint the bands on a 1K resistor but it could be, for simplicity 1-Ohm…what else do you need inside the “black box”, a blue LED and a capacitor?

    So here’s the craft bit, the water is already at 40 Deg C, the input thermocouple is always measuring room temp not water temp. the output thermocouple is also initially at room temp, but as the already warm water trickles past in it gradually warms up, hey presto the QX is heating the water, or is it?

    Of course the scope just reads what it reads, because it is quite easy to read the timebase, the voltage scale and the DC offset from any standard scope.

    AR is getting lazy in his old age, where’s the very expensive crate? Ah, I know, he’s running short on cash and can’t do the “Grand Scam” these days.

    1. Bill, I doubt that was it. If it mattered, I’d be attempting to get more eyewitness accounts, but it doesn’t matter. I have no problem with the water being heated as much as it was, but that doesn’t show that the heat is coming from some reaction in the QX, beyond the QX being (and what’s in that “heat exchanger”) being heated by the power supply. That’s not a lot of heat for that supply to produce, at all.

  3. Thank you for your reply, when I hear Duncan has something that really is exciting , but he can’t say anything. It sounds as if the entire field could be explained by measurement errors and confirms that after thirty years they can’t make a cup of tea.
    The lack of neutrons and Helium is also what you get with a bag of hammers, so I wouldn’t be bragging about it.
    The most intelligent approach would be to label this “psdeuscience” like dowsing or homeopathy, but I keep the search for “cold fusion” and “lenr” on Google news incase there is a mention anywhere in the world about it no matter the obvious frauds that Clown with Snakes perpetrates and the very gullible , that believe him.
    Please keep up the good work as I really appreciate your writing.

    1. You are welcome. There is a lack of neutrons with a bag of hammers, but bags of hammers don’t generate anomalous heat, and they don’t generate correlated helium, at a rate consistent with the fusion Q. There were early measurements of helium, but they were not quantitatively correlated with heat and easily could have been some kind of leakage. Miles has been confirmed, many times, but the goal in Texas is to increase precision, and this is difficult mass spectrometery, they are blazing new paths. They want to do this right, and “right” excludes premature announcements. Cold fusion was long plagued with that, from the beginning.

      See my Current Science paper from 2015 for a summary of the history. If we had to make a definitive choice, the history establishes a preponderance of the evidence conclusion. Cold fusion (the Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect) is real and it generates helium and is probably some kind of fusion in ultimate effect, if not in mechanism. This was strong enough to justify millions of dollars in expenses to validate and to increase precision, because the exact value of the ratio has implications for theory.

      The paper does not show any correlation with tea brewing. Bad Science? Or stupid critique? By the way, if it were it up to me, I would be running the experiments at an environmental temperature close to boiling, so any XP could be contributing to tea brewing. Would this have any meaning whatever? Should all cold fusion experiments be accompanied by a tea carafe? For a commercial announcment, brewing tea would be a great idea, if anyone has a technique to generate that much heat. Rossi could have done it, but they served coffee. The heated product really tells us nothing about the reaction.

      (Environmental temperature is not “input power.” They did not figure, at all, how much power it took to heat the room for Rossi’s DPS, nor should they. But, yes, a demo that allowed them to back off on room heating power, a measurable amount, would be impressive! In Doral, Rossi did not use the “room calorimeter,” when a megawatt should have been blatantly obvious; that heat exchanger, if it had existed, could have been used for an independent measurement of power. For a scientific experiment, Storms used a heater to maintain experiment temperature as high, and XP reduced the heating power needed. I suggested this to Letts some years back, because he was finding, as others had found, that XP increases with temperature. Not enough to match the normal cooling (but this could be changed by insulating the device, making it more like a bomb calorimeter; controlled cooling would be necessary). To my mind, this approach has been under-utilized. Storms recent results have massive implications, that is work well worth confirmation.)

      It has been under-utilized because everyone was trying to create impressive results and adding more “input power” was less than impressive. But maintaining temperature is not a reaction input, it’s an environmental condition and will not, in itself, increase output power unless there is a temperature-sensitive reaction, as, apparently, there is.

  4. As noted, there is no measurement of the input power. I’m not quite sure of the power going into the power-supply, since the way it’s stated implies that they’re using a 60W fan to cool it so the power supply itself could be a lot more than 60W. Assuming it’s a 60W supply, though, and it’s current-limited in the way plasma supplies tend to be, then putting in an 800 ohm resistor (intended to draw 72W at 300mA) would likely make the supply fold in the way it was seen, putting out a small voltage and current. Still, the substitution of the 800 ohm resistor for the QX device tells us nothing useful as regards the power being fed into the QX during the run.

    Measuring the power drawn from the wall-socket would be easy to do. Sure, the power supply won’t be 100% efficient, but since what’s really important is how much total power you need to put in and how much power you get out in total then the efficiency of the power-supply is not really that important. If it’s low, and can’t be improved, then the output power still needs to be more than the power taken from the wall-socket in order that the system will be useful.

    Net result of the demo is that we don’t know how much power went in. Given that, there can be no valid calculation of COP. I don’t see how the believers can think that the input power was as low as Rossi claimed, given the need for a cooling-fan on the power supply. Also somewhat amusing is that despite the evidence that the feed to the QX was not pure DC, measurements of DC are used in calculating the power in the shunt resistor.

    What the hell happened to normal science here? It even seems that people are forgetting the frequency/impedance curves of coils versus caps or resistors. They are taking Rossi’s word that the impedance of the QX is around zero without it ever being measured in any way. There’s no need to speculate on hidden power being fed in via the ground connections when the source of the power is in front of your nose.

    If Rossi had had a power-measuring device (Killawatt or similar) to plug the power-supply into, to show the overall power needed to run, then (apart from the other ways of getting measurements wrong) he’d have been more convincing. As it is, even the basics aren’t covered. This shouldn’t convince anyone who is even halfway competent. As it is, though, it seems Rossi has some new investors lined up, so expect the DPS to continue for a while.

    1. The relatively smart denizens of Planet Rossi will say that, of course, this was not a test designed to convince skeptics. Which is obviously true. This would be a DPS designed to keep followers happy. Not all are happy with it, they also are a tad puzzled by claims of low input power with no actual measurement, and they noticed this qucikly, when Gullstrom and Rossi published that nonsense with the one ohm resistor — which is a fine way to measure substantial current, but not a way to measure power at all unless the voltage across the DUT is used. And measuring only DC power, using only DC instruments, when it’s clear that the power is not “DC.” It’s variable, and plasmas need a strike voltage. I have yet to nail down where in the video one can see the plasma being struck, but it is apparently frequent: the appearance is that the plasma is struck — which takes high voltage — and then there is a period, and then it is struck again. How much power is input when the plasma is struck? There is no indication or measurement. But a power supply that overheats, Rossi’s alleged “design problem,” is a sign of high output power, and that Mats communicated the nonsense about heat being conducted back to the supply through the wires beggars belief. Has he lost his mind?

      Maybe. Perhaps insanity is a communicable disease.

      The ethical problem for the scientists involved is that they have repeated Rossi Says, in many cases, as if it were fact, they lose attribution and balance. Essen, as a leader in the Swedish Skeptics Society, one would think, would come up with alternate hypotheses, but doesn’t. The general theory I have seen about this is that it is known or sensed that any challenge to Rossi’s claims will result in loss of access. So they hold their water. At one point, the possibility of Rossi Reality was high enough that this might have been somewhat sensible (though my recommendation to CMNS scientists, in 2011, was to keep a distance and not allow their reputation to add to his. If what he was claiming was real, it would surely come out. What actually and eventually came out was extensive evidence that Rossi Lies, beyond a reasonable doubt.

      So the only judge remaining for Rossi, if he has anything real, is the market. Not dog and pony shows, because he has trained dogs and ponies. It is hilarious, actually, Rossi has many times said in mercato veritas, and the real market has rejected Rossi — at high cost! — but his followers keep on lapping it all up. He could have been selling power from 2011 on (to heating co-ops in Sweden). Only now is he seeking customers for heat, but he doesn’t have a plant to sell, he dismantled them (both of them?), and has said that no more development will be done with the original E-cat technology, it’s all QX now. But in 2014, he told IH that he could sell power for $1000 per day from a plant that only cost $200,000 to build. And so they approved of that.

      He is now pointing out what was pointed out by skeptics long ago: that if Rossi had to be there 24/7 to keep the plant running, it was not economically feasible. With a real technology, someone could be trained, not to mention automation and remote monitoring with alarms, etc. But Rossi would have to trust someone else to do that operation.

      Paranoia strikes deep. Or it is a smokescreen, a running excuse, a pretense, an act. And I don’t care enough any more to watch that three-hour video. I will document it as others point to sections and points of interest in it. I have better things to do than to torture myself with Endless Boring Deception.

      1. Jed – thanks for clarification. First time I saw references to Kill-a-watt I had to look it up since they’re not a European brand I’ve seen. It’s a reasonable assumption that a power supply plugged into the wall will have a power factor close to 1 and that a power-meter will almost certainly not under-read the actual power taken and will be within a few percent of the real power anyway. More than good-enough to see a gain of 500x or more in power out.

        Seeing the amount of power input tells less about the current/voltage being used at the device, so ideal for a black-box demonstration. Of course, it’s a problem if it’s shown that the power in is greater than the power out, which is a good reason for Rossi to not use this method.

        Abd – it seems to me that the scientists present cannot be interpreted as anything other than tacit support. Maybe they are worried about losing access if they are seen to be unsupportive, but it also implies that they believe Rossi has something. James Randi said he could fool scientists more easily than others, since they didn’t see things outside their specialties and didn’t expect to be lied to. It’s maybe a shame that they seem to not be reading your documentation of the lies and bad explanations that Rossi has produced over the years.

        Not a lot of point in wasting 3 hours on the video. Enough eyes have seen it that the important points will get pinpointed in the other blogs and can be explored if needed. On the face of it, though, the heat out was less than the power taken from the wall so it’s not an active device and doesn’t produce excess heat, nuclear or otherwise.

        I’ll quote from Alan’s post on LF at https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/5417-demonstration-of-the-e-cat-qx-24-november-summary-thread/?postID=76212#post76212 :
        “After the demo was finished, there was a line of supplicants outside Rossi’s door. It was still there 4 hours later. And they weren’t there to complain by the way they behaved. Whatever you think, the Rossi magic is still working. And it doesn’t seem to be fading.”
        Seems like people still believe in magic….

        1. I agree the scientists are giving tacit support. Perhaps inadvertently, but that is what they are doing.

          Regarding the watt-meter, you can also use a combined watt-meter and battery backup unit. These cost about $130. I described this at LENR Forum:

          “You could also use a computer battery backup . . . Some of them have built-in volt-meter or watt-meter functions. With a device plugged into the ‘battery backup’ sockets, I do not think it is possible for one of these to supply more than the rated power shown on the back. The ‘surge only’ sockets might produce more than the rated power.

          You can also unplug a battery backup and watch the battery drain. I have an APC battery backup that has an optional connection to a computer, so you can collect data from it. At this moment it shows: 121 V, 122 W, 60 Hz, 39 minutes of battery power remaining.”

          However many hidden wires there may be, or tricks there may be, when you unplug the battery backup from the wall, it can only supply the manufacturer’s rated watt-minutes of energy. If the device begin tested in a black box mode produces far more energy than the watt-minute capacity of the battery backup, you know it is producing excess energy.

          1. Jed – if the power to the QX really was the 45mW as implied, with the voltage across the QX less than a volt (since the sense resistor was at less than a volt and the QX impedance was “almost zero”), he could have run it on a single AAA cell and blown away the critics. Using a power supply that runs so hot it needs a fan implies that the QX needs a lot of power to run it.

            Using a UPS unplugged from the wall is however a good demonstration too. That gives a pretty hard limit on the power and the energy used and it would normally be difficult to fit extra hidden batteries inside (no space left).

            The lowest-voltage plasma-based device I’ve seen had a strike voltage of 30V (gas discharge tube for comms use) so it’s pretty certain that the measured 12V output from the QX power supply was misleading. On the other hand, producing a decent-sized spark in air from a 1.5V AA battery is commonly done for spark-ignition of gas flames for cookers, so striking the plasma using a small battery is not difficult.

            It’s good to see you providing valid objections to the stupidity of people who want to believe Rossi has a success this time, but it doesn’t seem to be changing anyone’s mind. It seems like they haven’t actually done any real experiments and don’t understand how to measure things.

            1. There are spark igniters that run off a 1.5 V battery, but they have a circuit that creates a fast current pulse in a transformer, the voltage for the spark is 6 KV in one example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09R6teBOlco. I imagine that it is possible to create a gas-discharge tube with a relatively low strike voltage.

              Rossi mostly does not explain what he does, but sometimes he explains with explanations that make no sense, such as the idea that the heating problem was caused by heat conducted back from the QX though the electrical cables. An explanation like this makes sense to someone who is living in a fog, not observing the world around them. Yes, any connected metal will conduct heat fairly well, but the cross-sectional area is low and thus the resistance is fairly high, and, as well, the metal radiates heat. A metal handle on a frying pan will get hot, but not nearly as hot as the pan, and a handle is far thicker than ordinary wires. There is a wire leading to the filament in an indandescent light, and the filament is white-hot in operation. Do the wires get hot? They may get warm, but from the conducted current and their own resistance. To get significant extra heat from the filament requires that this heat be, perhaps, in an enclosed space, not out in open air. So … apparently someone tapped Rossi on the shoulder and he withdrew the explanation. But does he ever explain why he thought that? Remember, Rossi originally explained that the heat was dissipated from the “1 MW” Doral plant first, in an “endothermic process,” then “through the vents in the roof and out the back door.” Yet while he was giving that explanation, if he did not perjure himself, he had used a full-blown heat exchanger in the mezzanine.

              It has all become undeniably obvious: Rossi lies. His smarter followers agree, but excuse it. He must lie in order to protect his secrets. No, one does not protect secrets by running public demonstrations and lying about them. One protects secrets by maintaining secrecy! My operating hypothesis is that Rossi is insane, which allows that he might even believe his own lies, but the heat exchanger story was a lie. He would likely rationalize it to himself as necessary because “they wanted to steal his secrets and not pay for them!” His new attorney was brilliant, because the prior counsel was leading him down the rosy path to prison.

              1. Abd – if you’re interested, there’s a good introduction to GDTs at http://g3ynh.info/disch_tube/intro.html that includes the Paschen curves. The curves on Wikipedia seem to internally disagree as to the minimum voltages for a strike. These days there are not only coils used to get the HV needed to strike but also some piezo-transformers that are solid-state and thus should last longer.

                As to insanity, I tend to disagree there. Rossi has found that enough people will swallow anything that he says and try to make sense of it even when it doesn’t make sense. He’s found that he can backtrack on his previous statements without losing too many core supporters or income. It looks to be a pretty good bet that he could take the money and disappear any time he wanted without any legal pursuit or comeback, and maybe he isn’t yet sure that he’s got enough to last his lifetime. As such, if there are more investors lined up as it seems, then it is not insane to do what he appears to be doing. He effectively has nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Others have followed that path in the past – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ernst_Worrell_Keely where even though the method of the fraud was exposed after he died there are still to this day people following the theories and trying to get the damned thing to actually work. It never did. Keely wasn’t insane either, just a very effective fraudster who persuaded people he had the answers. Every so often I refer back to Keely as an example of just how easy it is to gain a faithful following, and how easy it is to fool those faithful. A more-recent example would be Hope Girl and the QEG perpetual-motion machine, which gained a surprising number of ardent followers who tried to build their own machines. They managed to light some light-bulbs, but the overall efficiency from wall-socket to light-bulbs was around 40% at best. That scam is still running as far as I know, with a hard core of people who think that if they get the design better and a few more gongs and singing-bowls in the room then it will work.

                When Rossi finally decides he’s had enough, and disappears somewhere, I expect there will still be people trying to replicate what he claimed to do and there will be claims that it’s “suppressed technology”. Yep, I know no-one has tried to suppress it, in the same way as Keely wasn’t suppressed, but the big claims and lack of evidence will have some people wondering if they can replicate it, and it’s not too difficult to get some sort of replica made if you don’t mind having to make up the bits that are not specified.

                It’s not like Rossi is riding a tiger and can’t get off in case it kills him. This is more like a carthorse and all he has to avoid is not staying too long under the rear end. When he goes he’ll just go to earth somewhere, but at the moment I don’t see a good reason for him to do so. He’s got people who accept his demos as being of something real, and he’s got scientists backing him who don’t question the oddities and missing data. As I see it, he got away with perjury in the aborted trial. Things are looking good for a few years more of the same, and then there still the next invention when he finds that the QX is not manufacturable. The believers think that IH didn’t follow Rossi’s instructions rather than Rossi told lies. Why stop?

                1. Nice. I edited the comment to create actual links. For simplicity, if the spam filter rejects a post for having too many links, it should be enough to just break the link by putting a space after the colon. Then anyone can just copy and paste the non-http: part of the link into a browser bar, which will supply it. When I see these, I will fix the link, which, again, will just be a matter of taking the space out.

                  As to insanity, I’ve had quite a few conversations with people who have known Rossi fairly well. The pure con-artist story doesn’t seem to be enough to explain Rossi’s behavior and impact on people. But maybe. At this point, because we know that, whatever the cause or reason, ROSSI LIES, we don’t need to decide, we simply need to know he is unreliable. Sure, I can understand someone thinking that IH was incompetent but …. Rossi was there, paid to help them, and for a year as their “Chief Scientist.” And the lies and deceptions are plain from clear and attested evidence, this is not mere IH claims.

                  I’ll be writing about Mats’ report on the DPS. He does indicate the problems, but then dismisses them. Mats knows that if he makes too strong a challenge, he will lose access, that’s fairly obvious. To be fair, he is in a difficult position. As it is, he might think, he is being fair by pointing out the problems and by recommending that anyone interested in investing insist on better disclosure and testing.

                  1. Abd – thanks. I’d thought two links would pass the spam filter, but when they didn’t I broke both (I didn’t know how far I needed to break them).

                    The QEG story is fascinating and I could have linked to that as well – there are others too that can be compared/contrasted with Rossi to show that someone with an obviously-false claim can nevertheless gather a lot of followers and income and keep those followers even after it’s become obvious that it’s a string of lies. I can produce examples of people fooling themselves, fooling a sequence of customers, and also fooling the same group for multiple times (the way Rossi is doing, IMHO). For the third category, the responses of the followers to criticism of the project is often almost religious in the claim that it really does work. See WITTS or Wayne Travis where that religious side is deliberately emphasised.

                    I’ve read Mats’ report, and it seems he accepts that the input power wasn’t actually measured but simply claimed to be negligible. He states though that he thinks Rossi is trustworthy and so should be believed, thus showing he didn’t read the court case and/or doesn’t understand how to measure things. Not a good position for someone who puts himself forward as a technical writer.

                    On LF, Jed has brought up the point that there’s a similarity with the “Nigerian Prince” scam, where the marks self-select themselves as being gullible. I see this as a reasonable explanation for what we see.
                    https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/5417-demonstration-of-the-e-cat-qx-24-november-summary-thread/?postID=76599#post76599
                    You and I may have a lot of difficulty understanding how anyone could be fooled by a story that doesn’t hang together logically, but that doesn’t mean that the perpetrator is actually insane in a certifiable way, but simply repeating a behaviour that they’ve found gainful. There is a surprisingly large supply of people who want to believe a big claim uncritically. That is after all how politicians manage to get re-elected….

                    1. I should mention that the insanity idea is not proven, nor is it provable. It is merely consistent with some of the evidence, and, if true, could indicate why Rossi is so convincing in person, as he obviously is. He’s so convincing because he believes his own “explanations,” in some way. In other words, he is a sincere liar. Yes, an oxymoron, but reality is complex. We somewhat expect those who are insane to be stupid, which is clearly incorrect, one can be high-functioning in some ways. I mentioned insanity as a possibility to Darden in Florida, and he said, “That could explain it.”
                      However, I don’t “believe” the insanity idea. I merely find it useful. It defuses possible moral judgment, which generally confuses. I don’t feel hatred for Rossi, in spite of what is often alleged about my coverage of Rossi issues. I’m rather fond of him in some ways. He is demonstrating the intensity of certain human frailties. Popping some stuffed-shirt balloons. And never giving up.
                      Still, I think he could be happier playing tennis with his beautiful wife, and doing something more useful.

  5. Thanks for the comments Abd Don’t know why there is any interest in Rossi (and there is very little) as we know he is such a buffoon.
    I imagine BLP and Brillion are crooked as well, are they?

    1. I am suspicious of BLP, given how long they have been at it. However, Brillouin is real — and, notice, they have the weakest results so far. Rossi has demonstrated that one can create much more impressive results with fakery. That is not a proof that Brillouin is genuine, but the most I’ve seen from them is a bit of puffery, perhaps. Debatable. I have not seen truly convincing evidence from them yet.

      There is clear and convincing evidence that LENR is real, but … the direct evidence (the heat/helium correlation) is old, though widely confirmed, and I don’t wonder that some doubt it. However, what is appropriate in that situation is confirmation with increased precision, and that work is under way in Texas. I have talked with Duncan, but nothing can be released yet. These are careful, conservative scientists. The opposite of Rossi and company.

      So what we have is an effect discovered by scientists (not some commercial venture, though the lawyers got involved quickly), but it is (1) not understood, there is no validated theory, and, related to this, (2) difficult to set up and maintain. The name “cold fusion” was misleading from the start, even though it may indeed be some kind of fusion; it led to an expectation of radiation that was missing. That colored how all the research was seen. For example, in the Britz database, papers are classified, and papers finding no neutrons are called “negative,” but, in fact, no neutrons (or very very low levels) are a known characteristic of the effect. So that is actually confirmation of a kind!

      Obviously not a conclusive one, but supporting. And helium is being generated without gammas, also a clear clue that this is not your grandfather’s fusion.

      1. I see I did not respond about BLP. I have no evidence for “scam” with them, but it is outside my area of interest. They do not claim LENR or “cold fusion.” They have been claiming something like “next year” for a long time, which is, of course, suspicious. But not a proof of anything.

        1. It’s possible that BrLP are having a measurement problem with the light output, where their instruments tell them there’s a lot more energy than there actually is. I suspect that they have tried using PVs to collect that light energy, and found it to be much less than expected. The reason for this suspicion is that it’s an obvious thing to do, and that having such a demonstration of full functionality, even if it’s not as compact as they would like, would still silence any criticism and sceptical comments. Maybe they’ve got enough investors anyway, but to put off that demonstration of self-looping (running the whole system off the power generated by the output light) until 1000-sun PVs are available is a weak excuse and kicking the can down the road.

          I wouldn’t class BrLP as a scam, since I think all the people working on it believe that it essentially works and that they’ll get over the problems. That doesn’t however mean that the investors will get their money back. I think the released information avoids mentioning the problems they have encountered (except sometimes when they mention a problem that has now been overcome) and only emphasises the positive things, even when they most likely have some knowledge that it may not be true. Still, they may actually get over the problems and produce something that actually works, and then the investors will make a profit. This is business, not science, so don’t expect the whole truth. The warts are all air-brushed out.

          With Brillouin, I don’t doubt their published results or their honesty. I do doubt their theory as to what is happening, and I think they are having problems in increasing the scale. This may be a problem in producing and routing the frequencies that are actually effective as opposed to the frequencies they think are effective. I think they will solve those problems, but it may take a while. It can be tricky working with RF.

          1. It’s possible that BrLP are having a measurement problem with the light output, where their instruments tell them there’s a lot more energy than there actually is. I suspect that they have tried using PVs to collect that light energy, and found it to be much less than expected. The reason for this suspicion is that it’s an obvious thing to do, and that having such a demonstration of full functionality, even if it’s not as compact as they would like, would still silence any criticism and sceptical comments. Maybe they’ve got enough investors anyway, but to put off that demonstration of self-looping (running the whole system off the power generated by the output light) until 1000-sun PVs are available is a weak excuse and kicking the can down the road.

            Yes, that explanation is BS. They would need to pull the PVs away from the device, creating a larger collection area, so less power per device. They might also make the device smaller, so that whatever area they can manage is not overwhelmed. BS explanations for what is missing from a test protocol, that’s a red flag for a scam. (Not a proof, because there may be reasonable alternate explanations. The large collection area need not be the full sphere worth. Rather, it could be a small section with as few as one device, though that would not create self-power. Self-power is not the place to start, but rather it would be a clear demonstration that self-power can be accomplished merely by multiplying up identical collection devices. A collection of phony excuses is what we see from scammers. They have an expensive and complicated device, with many things that can go wrong. With a scientist, it’s incredibly rude to maintain high suspicion of fraud. But with an entrepreneur, fraud (illegal) shades into puffery (which may be legal, it depends) and the benefit of the doubt, present with scientists, should properly be absent.

            I wouldn’t class BrLP as a scam, since I think all the people working on it believe that it essentially works and that they’ll get over the problems.

            Scammers may also think that. The lower offense, puffery, is highly offensive for scientists, but is often rewarded in business. For dealing with investors, it can be investment fraud, if relevant negative information is concealed. But it’s not uncommon for that to happen. “We are confident that the problems can be resolved” would probably be legitimate, but concealing the problems themselves, on the basis of “we don’t want them to worry their little heads,” can be fraud.\

            I think of Defkalion and that flow meter problem. Were they aware of it? The evidence is not clear, but that they totally bailed and went silent is a very bad sign. That they attempted to prevent independent measurement of flow, easy to do, is a very bad sign. They may have thought, “This doesn’t matter and we don’t want to reveal our proprietary startup profile,” but how they responded with the Gamberale report show exactly how not to respond if one wants to preserve any kind of credibility. They knew their startup protocol and where that flow was set. Yannis, their CTO, was smart and would immediately recognize the problem, brought to his attention. Yannis, who had been very open and communicative, immediately vanished. I should probably find his email address and write him. Making that mistake was understandable. Hiding when it was found, not.
            Same with the “independent professors” who wrote the Lugano report. It was not so much that they made that enormous mistake with setting emissivity, and not running a true control experiment, but . . . it’s the cover-up, stupid!

            That doesn’t however mean that the investors will get their money back. I think the released information avoids mentioning the problems they have encountered (except sometimes when they mention a problem that has now been overcome) and only emphasises the positive things, even when they most likely have some knowledge that it may not be true. Still, they may actually get over the problems and produce something that actually works, and then the investors will make a profit. This is business, not science, so don’t expect the whole truth. The warts are all air-brushed out.

            “Believers,” however, lose the distinction.-

            With Brillouin, I don’t doubt their published results or their honesty.

            Nor do I. For full disclosure, I have good friends involved with Brillouin.

            I do doubt their theory as to what is happening, and I think they are having problems in increasing the scale.

            The problem is not exactly one of scale, but is one that means that one may not be able to improve results by increasing the scale. Let’s assume they are creating LENR. I am not convinced yet, because they have not done the required correlation work. The theory makes no sense to me, it would predict effects that would be easy to observe, that have not been reported. (This is generally true for explanations that involve the production of single neutrons. One runs into severe rate issues.) However, they may still be seeing a LENR effect, and I don’t know why they have not confirmed that. To be sure, the SRI mass spec had become non-functional, if I’m correct. But there are other mass spectrometers on the planet.

            This may be a problem in producing and routing the frequencies that are actually effective as opposed to the frequencies they think are effective. I think they will solve those problems, but it may take a while. It can be tricky working with RF.

            Indeed. The problem is that they have a method that requires continual power input, and they have not-large COP. Scaling up may not improve COP, even if they are oberving a real LENR effect, which is, in my view, not a solid conclusion from low COP heat alone. Showing correlated transmutations could be.

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