April 24, 2009 1:52 PM
When first presented in 1989 cold fusion was quickly dismissed as junk science. But, as Scott Pelley reports, there's renewed buzz among scientists that cold fusion could lead to monumental breakthroughs in energy production.
Cold Fusion Is Hot Again
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See all 29 CommentsWhat he hasn't explained though, is why his assumed measurement mistake only happens every now and then (excess heat is observed only sometimes).
What he also hasn't understood is that if his explanation were correct (which isn't so), all previous electrochemistry experiments in the history of science would have had the same systematic experimental error. And Moulton45 has now uncovered it, well done, please collect your Nobel Prize for this significant advancement.
Certainly the comments by Moulton45 are interesting, even though I don't have the background to really critque or even understand some of the terms he uses. But whether or not he and the other skeptics are correct is obviously beyond me.
It seems obvious to me though that one easily determine whether excess electrical energy is ultimately created by using a battery of a certain known amp-hour rating as the souce of electrical energy, and after heating water (or a refrigerant in an ORC process for a more efficient conversion) and turning a turbine to produce electricity, charge (if possible) several such virgin batteries with this electricity. This would be "real world" experiment -- not just one in lab conditions. Obviously if the water wasn't heated enough to produce the requisite electricity, then the virgin batteries wouldn't be charged (whether it is one battery, or a hundred or more).
On January 14, 2011 a public demonstration was held at the University of Bologna with about 50 attendees. The US press totally ignored this momentous event.
Perhaps 60 Minutes should do an update on this story. The disaster in Japan makes it painfully clear that our current nuclear power, which was adapted from bomb technology, is a disastrous mistake. Focardi and Rossi plan to deliver a one million watt power station to a Greek company this October. A true "black swan" event, this technology will change the world.
McKubre might not bother to measure AC (audio) power, but the technicians at CBS surely know how to measure the peak-to-peak audio power using an ordinary VU Meter.
In McKubre's best results, he reports an excess power of about 500 to 1200 mW. My calculations, treating the AC (audio) power as a 2 volt peak-to-peak triangle wave, yield an audio power going into his cell of roughly 500 to 1800 Mw.
Is this the missing input power that Michael Garwin suspects that McKubre left out of his model when he (McKubre) assumed there was only constant current DC power going into his cell?
It's ironic that McKubre is funded by EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, which depends on funding from the electric power utilities, whose revenues depend on calculating AC power consumption correctly.
McKubre (like most researchers in CF) is using a precision constant current power supply. When the ohmic resistance of the cell fluctuates (as it does when it's bubbling), the constant current power supply has to adjust the drive voltage to maintain the constant current. In an ideal constant current power supply, this adjustment is instantaneous. But in a real power supply it takes a small but finite time for the power supply to adjust. The speed at which it adjusts is called the slew rate. But no matter how fast the slew rate, there is a transient in which the voltage and current are perturbed and ramp to a new value.
It turns out that the AC power from this transient isn't that hard to compute. It can be modeled as a linear ramp, which replaces the ideal square wave (instantaneous correction) with a sawtooth (or triangle wave). When you integrate the power over the rise or fall of the triangle wave, you get the AC power that McKubre left out of his model.
I took the data from two of McKubre's experimental runs where he reports significant excess heat, and computed the AC power, assuming a peak-to-peak voltage fluctuation of 2 volts. I get AC power almost exactly equal to his anomalous excess heat.
So Michael Garwin was right. McKubre neglected to account for the AC power pumped into his cell when it's bubbling furiously and taxing the power supply to maintain a constant current as fast as it can.
There's a slew of AC electrical energy in that slew rate that McKubre neglected to account for.
When the cells are fully loaded, and evolving D2 and O2 gas, there is some (variable) amount of gas that clings to the electrodes, forming an irregular thin layer of gassy foam separating the electrode from the electrolyte.
A thin layer of dielectric material separating the electrode from the electrolyte introduces a phenomenon known as an electrochemical double layer. In effect, it turns the electrodes into double-layer capacitors, which can store energy the way an electronic flash does when it charges up.
Because McKubre and others are using a constant current power supply, the voltage into the cell fluctuates significantly once the bubbles start forming and wreaking havoc with the conductivity of the interface between the electrolyte and the electrodes. This fluctuating voltage drives an AC noise current into the cell, rapidly charging and discharging the double-layer capacitors formed by the presence of the thin layer of gas on the surface of the electrodes. This AC noise current is not included in McKubre's energy budget, but it appears to be large enough to account for the otherwise unexplained heat.
More details here:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:Cold_fusion/Skeptical_argument/Were_the_excess_heat_results_ever_shown_to_be_artifact%3F/Electrolytic_capacitor#Double_Layer_Capacitance
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHexcesspowe.pdf
The outer shell is a stainless steel can.
It's lined with Teflon, and filled with electrolyte.
In other words, his cell is a large Electrolytic Capacitor with a Teflon dielectric.
Here is a quick explanation from the Wikipedia article on Types of Capacitors:
"Electrolytic capacitors have a larger capacitance per unit volume than other types, making them valuable in relatively high-current and low-frequency electrical circuits, e.g. in power-supply filters or as coupling capacitors in audio amplifiers. High-capacity electrolytics, also known as supercapacitors or ultracapacitors, have applications similar to those of rechargeable batteries, e.g. in electrically powered vehicles."
"PTFE or Teflon is a higher performing and more expensive dielectric than other plastic dielectrics."
If the outer metal shell is grounded, and if the voltage of the LiOD electrolyte is time varying, electrical power will be conveyed through the Electrolytic Capacitor to ground.
How does McKubre model the electrical power drained away by the action of the Electrolytic Capacitor of the outer stainless steel shell of his cells?
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