Anyone Believe in LENR?

[brant2000]

I guess the debate has been around for decades, but does anyone follow some of the recent players (Rossi and Defkalion) and believe any of the claims they make about low energy nuclear reactions (LENR)? Seems to me that if there were any merits to it, there would be plenty of backers with enough money to make it happen.

 

[woodgeek]

Sadly, no. The latest folks from Italy have all but confessed. Reading about the demos, they were classic misdirection.....if you wanted to do calorimetry, you would do cold water in and hot water out and flow rate (measured with a calibrated pail)...what they did was water in and wet steam out, and assumed that the flow rate through the pump was constant both before startup and after the unit was 'operating'. Very fishy, and no way to actually measure BTUs.

 

[peakbagger]

I do ASME performance tests on occasion. There isnt a Performance Test Code for LENR but until one of these proposed systems can have a similar test performed on it by a recognized third party, its all smoke and mirrors.

 

[Corey]

Well...there have been some studies by credible sources (NASA) which seem to show anomalous heating when identical tests are conducted with hydrogen vs deuterium. For some reason, the deuterium generates excess heat where the hydrogen does not.

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/docs/LENR_at_GRC_2011.pdf

Other studies have shown similar results, so it appears "something" is going on. But is this true LENR, some misunderstood element of thermodynamics, an un-noticed standard chemical reaction? Time will tell.

Now if you ask if I believe there are megawatt plants getting ready for operation? No - I don't think we're there yet.