Blacklight Power

[GI-Thruster]

They did that ten years ago.  The chemists are satisfied.  It's the physicists who are all jittery.

The reactor at Rowan and its calorimetery apparatus are both open for anyone to examine and offer concerns or suggestion on how to improve the experiment.  How many times do I need to say this?  The evidence is out for anyone who has a notion to view for themselves.  This is very PUBLIC science being done at a state university.

[gospacex]

They did that ten years ago.  The chemists are satisfied.  It's the physicists who are all jittery.

Oh really? Provide URLs to a few ecstatic scientific publications "wow, a completely new state of ordinary hydrogen is found!"

The reactor at Rowan and its calorimetery apparatus are both open for anyone to examine and offer concerns or suggestion on how to improve the experiment.  How many times do I need to say this?

You may repeat that ad nauseum. Until there are more people who confirm that "hydrino" exists, repeating won't help.

[GI-Thruster]

"Oh really? Provide URLs to a few ecstatic scientific publications "wow, a completely new state of ordinary hydrogen is found!"

Here's a better idea.  You go spend your time looking for it.  BLP presents before the American Chemical Society each year.  You go trace it down.  Not worth my time.

Lets face facts.  The whiners here aren't going to trace anything down.  They're just going to keep whining that the evidence hasn't been collected for them just like they'd whine the evidence was cherry-picked if it had been collected for them.

That's why it's not worth my time to do your research.

[Pittsburgh]

If the chemists were satisfied ten years ago, then that was about the same time that evidence was provided for neutrinos having mass.  Flipping to the index and then the appropriate page, my physics textbook from 2004 references this.

I'd imagine that the textbook publishers operate their revisions on roughly the same time cycle for both physics and chemistry.  I'll see if I can get my hands on a new chemistry textbook and look up hydrino in the index.  You figure that if chemistry as a field has decided that there are states lower than the ground state, that will merit at least a footnote.

[GI-Thruster]

I'm not saying anyone has supported BLP.  I'm saying the whining is coming from the physicists, not the chemists.  This has nothing to do with text books!  What are you saying?!

Look, each time I make a call for some common sense here, an adversary comes along and places me in the position of a BLP advocate.  I'm not.  I'm just a humbe philosopher of technology suggesting that anyone who wants answers here can get them for themselves.  This is public science.  Avail yourself to it if you have an interest.  Otherwise, why waste time supporting the status quo position when there is so much evidence that this position may be in error?

That's not science and it's not thinking.  It's mob mentality.

[Pittsburgh]

The claim posited in this thread is that ten years ago hydrinos were provided to the scientific community, and while the physicists balked, the chemists were fine with it.  OK, at roughly the same time, evidence about neutrinos came to light, and the physics texts were changed within five or six years.  If chemistry as a field really does believe in hydrinos, then I'd expect to see a similar change in the chemistry books.  If I can't find reference to hydrinos in modern chemistry textbooks, then I'm forced to believe that chemists as a group don't believe in hydrinos.  Is that common sense?

[GI-Thruster]

Ah.  I see your point and this is an interesting test or measure of what entails scientific orthodoxy.  Certainly, school text books are a pretty fair measure.  I would point out a few issues with the naive application of this method though:

Neutrinos had been the constant source of discussion for decades before the first argon tank tests. They were in text books before the tests or certainly a guy like me would not have run across them thirty years ago.

Chemists are never going to promote the notion of hydrinos until the physicists have at.  That's not how scientific revolutions occur.  They're much less orderly than this.  We should expect biting, kicking and eye-gouging for a couple decades AFTER the evidence is out in an unassailable fashion, meaning things like a working reactor.

Just IMHO but again, let me recommend that the best place to get a sense of what this process is like is to read Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  You can get it in paperback used from Amazon for about $5 and it's a fun read.

[Zachstar]

They did that ten years ago.  The chemists are satisfied.  It's the physicists who are all jittery.

The reactor at Rowan and its calorimetery apparatus are both open for anyone to examine and offer concerns or suggestion on how to improve the experiment.  How many times do I need to say this?  The evidence is out for anyone who has a notion to view for themselves.  This is very PUBLIC science being done at a state university.

Um no that is NOT what I meant.

When I mean the middle of nowhere I mean middle of nowhere. Not "Reactor at Rowan" I mean "Reactor somewhere in the desert"

I could care less how many times it is said. All I see is power bills going up.

Want me to believe? Lets make it even simpler.. Use this gizmo to pump cheap clean power to the grid this year. Surely if its been proven time and again the power companies are required to buy back power in many states.

[GI-Thruster]

Zach, I'm all there.  I'd love the opportunity to visit Rowan and I want to see the evidence that power utilities are generating electricity based upon this method.  As it happens, I'm half hour drive from Rowan and the first BLP reactors are slated to go into commercial production this year.

So what does it take to get a fair handling of the evidence with regards BLP?  I dunno but I think more than we visit Rowan.  I think it takes time.  Lets wait and see if the power utilities actually deliver?  Sounds good to me.  Just a few months' wait it seems.

But no joke, even if it happens, if guys like Eric Lerner deliver this year, BLP needs to find another venue for pesos.  Maybe batteries.  Diamond films.  Whatever, but fusion is several orders magnitude energy density past what BLP is proposing.

Want my guess?  Energy STORAGE is going to prove itself the dominant player over energy generation the next two years.  Folks like EEStor are going to be the game changers if these other schemes work out.

[Zachstar]

Storage is solved. Not only did EEstor recently break the "Bull" barrier but you have now upwards of 10 "competing" technologies. Some even talking twice EEstor values. All on track for the 2015 2020 timeframe.

Fair? There is no "Fair" in the energy industry. If BLP can't handle skeptics. How are they going to handle political pressure from the coal industry? Its not a conspiracy that BLP would cut into their profits and thus they would rather it be studied "further"'

But yes battery investments is prime right now. Mainly because they would work well as grid balance. Which promises huge contracts.

If you say they are but a few months from showing something concrete such as power production directly to the grid then let us not discuss this further. Proof is in the action not words.

[GI-Thruster]

I'd like to know more about what is competing with EEStor.  If you have some links or other intel, please write me privately.  In particular, I always research high frequency caps and such as I'm involved with M-E research.  Any leads you have here would be appreciated.

[hop]

Zach, I'm all there.  I'd love the opportunity to visit Rowan and I want to see the evidence that power utilities are generating electricity based upon this method.  As it happens, I'm half hour drive from Rowan and the first BLP reactors are slated to go into commercial production this year.

You continue to ignore the fact that the actual Rowan experiment is neither independent nor reproducible in any scientifically meaningful sense. It relies on Blacklight supplied proprietary material and even if the results are accurate, they don't actually confirm Mills loony physics. At best, they demonstrates that the material undergoes and exothermic reaction when heated. A more parsimonious explanation is an ordinary chemical reaction that they didn't properly account for, but independent verification is impossible since the experiment relies on Blacklights material.

It is telling that they focused on the calorimetry, rather than the alleged hydrino byproduct.

You protested earlier that Barths criticism wasn't credible in part because it wasn't published in the peer reviewed literature, but as far as I can tell the "independent" report you find so convincing is only published on Blacklights web site. Even Janssons own home page links to it on Blacklights site, along with a little infomercial video starring.... Mills and Jansson.

As for commercial productions starting this year, it's been starting "real soon now" for the last decade. This certainly looks like typical scammer behavior.

So what does it take to get a fair handling of the evidence with regards BLP?

For evidence to be handled fairly, there would have to be some evidence to handle.

[mlorrey]

Zach, I'm all there.  I'd love the opportunity to visit Rowan and I want to see the evidence that power utilities are generating electricity based upon this method.  As it happens, I'm half hour drive from Rowan and the first BLP reactors are slated to go into commercial production this year.

You continue to ignore the fact that the actual Rowan experiment is neither independent nor reproducible in any scientifically meaningful sense. It relies on Blacklight supplied proprietary material and even if the results are accurate, they don't actually confirm Mills loony physics. At best, they demonstrates that the material undergoes and exothermic reaction when heated. A more parsimonious explanation is an ordinary chemical reaction that they didn't properly account for, but independent verification is impossible since the experiment relies on Blacklights material.

It is telling that they focused on the calorimetry, rather than the alleged hydrino byproduct.

You protested earlier that Barths criticism wasn't credible in part because it wasn't published in the peer reviewed literature, but as far as I can tell the "independent" report you find so convincing is only published on Blacklights web site. Even Janssons own home page links to it on Blacklights site, along with a little infomercial video starring.... Mills and Jansson.

As for commercial productions starting this year, it's been starting "real soon now" for the last decade. This certainly looks like typical scammer behavior.

So what does it take to get a fair handling of the evidence with regards BLP?

For evidence to be handled fairly, there would have to be some evidence to handle.

This article points to a good explanation for the burst of energy that is unsustainable:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan09/7127/2

It says the raney nickel that the sodium hydride is on is oxidizing, which is an extremely exothermic process. BLP would have to show that the raney nickel was not oxidizing to eliminate this proposed explanation.

[GI-Thruster]

Thanks for the link.  That is certainly one of the best pieces I've ever seen written about BLP.

On your objections, I think we can agree.  The onus is on BLP to show that there are no conventional chemical processes that can account for the energy coming out of their reactors.  I think there has already been some outside work on this, for instance, the other profs at Rowan who did their own chemical analysis which is in the study.  That doesn't mean the issue is solved.  It's not and this is because these things take time.

On the other hand, there is a bit of a catch 22 going on here.  I'm reading complaints that Rowan is in cahoots with BLP and that the Rowan work is not therefore an independent replication, and on the other hand, we certainly can't hold BLP responsible for the work done or not by others.  That's not their concern.  If this is the real complaint, that we need more independent verification, then I agree completely and have made the point myself many times.  But this is not a complaint against BLP.  It's a complaint against the scientific community at large.

Finally, in returning to this observation that the Rowan work is not an independent verification because they use a BLP reactor--I agree that it is wrongfully termed an "independent verification" when using a BLP reactor.  However, the whole point of the Rowan replication is to show that the calorimetry is correct, not the reactor.  The piece linked above is certainly correct when it quotes that doing calorimetry is very dicey work and it's very easy to make mistakes here.  THAT is the point of the Rowan work, to show they can do the calorimetry correctly and THAT is why their process is open for observation to anyone who wants to contribute.  That is good science.

[hop]

so as not to pollute http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=17647.60 with BLP stuff, I'll reply here

I think it is in a small sense already available.  There's one running months now at Rowan University.

It's a gross misrepresentation to imply that the Rowan experiment was a demonstration of a viable power production technology. It's a "reactor" only in the sense that it's a vessel which contains a reaction.

When they heated a proprietary substance they got a spike of additional heat out. They didn't run a continuous process with net power production, and they didn't do anything that would validate the claimed underlying physics. They did claim that ordinary chemistry couldn't produce the observed results, but the credibility of this is dubious given that the proprietary nature of the fuel. At least one apparently plausible mechanism has been suggested.

Bizarrely they did not appear to make any attempt validate the underlying physics claims. Proving the existence of "hydrinos" would be Nobel prize territory. Getting a brief exothermic reaction out of some mystery substance provided by a third party, and publishing a non peer reviewed report and an cheesy infomercial video starring the lead investigator and the company founder ? Not so much.

there's a utility doing assembly on a commercial plant in NM or NV, I forget which.

Best I can tell, what actually happened was two small rural NM utility cooperatives allegedly purchased licenses for an unspecified amount. The terms of the licenses are only described in the vaguest terms in blacklights press release, and strangely, the two licensees didn't find it significant enough to even mention on their web sites.

edit: the press releases and licensees

http://www.blacklightpower.com/Press%20Releases/BlackLightProcessEstacadoPressRelease121108.html
http://www.rcec.org/

http://www.blacklightpower.com/Press%20Releases/BlackLightProcessFarmersPressReleaseFINAL010609.html
http://www.farmerselectric.org/

ConEd and PG&E, they are not.

[hop]

GI-Thrusters response here http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=17647.msg430040#msg430040 didn't contain much of substance, but there's a couple things worth pointing out.

Certainly what I wrote was not a gross misrepresentation.  The reactor is running.

A plain reading of the "independent" report shows that the "reactor" is a container of Blacklights "fuel" in a calorimeter. "Running" it means of applying heat, and measuring additional heat produced for a brief period following. While the Blacklight web site has various pretty animations of power plants, that's not what was tested.

You shouldn't need an advanced degree in anything (never mind philosophy!) to see that describing this as a demonstration of a viable power source is unjustified.

Moreover, the amount of "excess" heat produced (about 1 megajoule) could easily be produced by an ordinary chemical reaction involving a small fraction of the "fuel". Some speculation on possible sources can be found at http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/12/something-strange-comes-this-way-well.html

The report does claim that conventional sources were ruled out, but it's not clear that conclusion is justified by the analysis they did.

But it is really silly to presume that BLP is oogie boogie considering the years this has been going on, and the quality of folks associated with it.  Again, it is not rational to argue this is a hoax or a fraud, considering the people involved

Because scientists and respected figures have never ever engaged in long running, large scale fraud. Right.

I'm not saying Blacklight is necessarily a fraud. However, dismissing the idea out of hand does not seem justified, especially considering how much of Blacklights behavior has in common with other fraudulent energy schemes. I should also mention that Blacklight being fraudulent would not require that the Rowan experiment also be a fraud. For whatever reason, the scope was limited such that it doesn't touch on the important parts the Blacklight claims.

Hop, make whatever argument you like in the BLP thread.  I'll be happy to read it and consider it but I don't intend to respond further.

[GI-Thruster]

Hop, I honestly don't want to get drawn into yet another debate on this issue.  I will just close in saying that it is you, not I; who is misreading the report.  Anyone here can open the link you've provided and read from page 11 under Conclusions and see that:

a) It is a reactor.  They call it that because that's what it is.

b) They claim to be an "external" team.  Your argments about how independent they are make no sense.  This is not independent in that they rely upon the BLP folks for guidance and resources, but it is a completely external experiment run by a state university.

c)  They did do what they consider adequate chemical analysis and they have concluded this is a novel reaction.  The heat generated cannot be explained through recourse to normal chemistry.  You can offer vague notions that you have no confidence in this sort of investigation, but the onus at this point is on you, not the Rowan team; to show Rowan's analysis is in error.

Lacking that, you can still make the argument that we need to see more research, more independent research and more evidence.  I will agree with you.  :-)

[hop]

a) It is a reactor.  They call it that because that's what it is.

Rather than playing word games, how about addressing what it actually does ?

Here's are reminder of what you said earlier:

I think it is in a small sense already available [as a viable spacecraft power source].  There's one running months now at Rowan University.  There's a utility doing assembly on a commercial plant in NM or NV...

Now look at what the Rowan "reactor" is: It's container of 1.5 kg of "fuel" that when heated, releases ~1MJ of additional energy. Once this is done, the fuel is expended. If you want to dispute this, please reference where the report says otherwise.

1MJ is ~0.27kwh, which AFAIK a similar mass lithium ion battery can produce about the same in electrical power.

To claim that this represents a demonstration of a viable energy generation system is, as I originally said, a gross misrepresentation. Doesn't matter if you call it a "reactor" or not, doesn't matter if there are actually "hydrinos" involved or not.

Your second claim also appears to be inaccurate: The two small NM utility coops obtained licenses to

... use the BlackLight Process and certain BLP energy technology for the production of thermal or electric power.  Estacado may produce gross thermal power up to a maximum continuous capacity of 250 MW or convert this thermal power to corresponding electricity.

Unless you have additional information, there's no indication that a plant is actually being built. For all we know, BLP bought the coop managers lunch in return for signing a license so they could issue a press release.

Why am I arguing about this ? Because you are repeating exactly the kind of misleading spin Blacklights activity appears designed to produce.

e.g.:
- Calling their 1MJ fuel block a "50kw reactor"
- Trumpeting licenses that on closer examination appear of limited significance.
- Obtaining* independent tests that don't actually support the viability of their system, and don't investigate the core of their claims.

* How the Rowan team came to do this test isn't clear. Although not explicitly stated, it looks to me like it was sponsored by BLP. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does raise some questions about the strange limitations on the scope of the experiment.

[AnalogMan]

- Obtaining* independent tests that don't actually support the viability of their system, and don't investigate the core of their claims.

* How the Rowan team came to do this test isn't clear. Although not explicitly stated, it looks to me like it was sponsored by BLP. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does raise some questions about the strange limitations on the scope of the experiment.

Yep - Blacklight Power, Inc. provided grants of at least $351k to the Rowan principal investigators for the period July 06 to present date.

[GI-Thruster]

Hop, I said that it in some small sense already exists.  I did NOT say what you inserted into the quote in brackets.  If you want to quote someone, especially with the quote bar here at NSF, then quote them.  Don't stick your words in their mouth.  I did not say what you utterly and deliberately misrepresented me as saying.  In conclusion I said, if it is not available now, it's because of the fueling issue--just what your argument says.

You see why I don't want to have this discussion with you--you have no concern for the facts.  Discussion over.  Stop misrepresenting me.