The current setup uses a programmable power supply that adjusts the power level every 5 seconds to maintain a constant power output of 5.5 watts regardless of the impedance of the circuit to which it is connected.  That allowed for a good control run with 5.5 watts into a joule heating wire vs. electrolysis with thoriated tungsten with the same input power levels.  Below is a chart of the results.

Experiments 95 to 98 – Possible Excess Heating

What is interesting in the above experiments is that the Delta T (temp change) for the experimental conditions (96-98) should have actually been less than the control condition (95) because of power lost to the electrolysis process.

In order to further explore this, several more experiments are planned.

1. Use a different joule heating wire (standard constantan wire vs. nitinol used in the above).
2. Run a control electrolysis experiment using an aluminum cathode.
3. Run a comparison electrolysis condition using Isotan44 wire to compare with thoriated tungsten.
4. Repeat run with thoriated tungsten.

On a side note, it was found that nitinol performed poorly in electrolysis in that the wire would complete dissolve in as few as 24 hours of run time. This may be related to embrittlement with hydrogen loading into the metal lattice as this does not happen when nitinol is used as a joule heater.

The Inventive Mindset #1 – Confused
 
The Inventive Mindset #2 – Contradictions

The Inventive Mindset #3 – The Independent Inventor

The Inventive Mindset #4 – Identifying Brilliance

The Inventive Mindset #5 – Inventive Class

The Inventive Mindset #6 – Attitude

The Inventive Mindset #7 – What to Invent

The Inventive Mindset #8 – Inventive Cycle

The Inventive Mindset #9 – Idea Notebook

The Inventive Mindset #10 – Practical Logic

The Inventive Mindset #12 – Our Product

The Inventive Mindset #13 – Feature Claims

The Inventive Mindset #14 – Available Art

The Inventive Mindset #15 – Broadest Claim

I have made a video of the first test run of the system, and it appears to work well.  The initial test was run at 30 Hz with a pulse width modulation (PWM) signal from the Android IOIO board.

Below is the circuit designed by Mr. Basgall for driving a spark plug from the Android device.

Mr. Basgall put a lot of work into the following PowerPoint presentations explaining the concepts underlying the operation of the above circuit and relates how these concepts may be important in LENR.

Mr. Basgall explains concepts of biasing elements as it relates to the spark plug driver circuit shown above.

Mr. Basgall explains concepts of saturation and oscillation.

Mr. Basgall explains concepts of induction and conduction in the following presentation.

Andrea Rossi

March 24th, 2013 at 10:53 PM

DEAR GEORGEHANTS:
YOUR COMMENT IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE OPENS THE GATE FOR THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:
THE TESTS OF THE THIRD INDIPENDENT PARTY HAVE BEEN COMPLETED YESTERDAY.
I DID NOT ATTEND, THEREFORE I DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY THE RESULTS, THAT WILL SURELY BE PUBLISHED BY THE EXAMINATORS, PROBABLY AROUND THE HALF OF APRIL. I MET THE 11 PROFESSORS AND EXPERTS THAT MADE THE TESTS WHEN THEY ENDED THEIR WORK AND THEY WERE VERY POSITIVE. ONE OF THEM TOLD ME ” WE GOT EVIDENCE THAT THE ‘ EFFECT’ IS REAL BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT”. I COULD NOT GET MORE INFORMATION, BECAUSE THEY NOW HAVE TO ELABORATE THE DATA TO PREPARE THE PUBLICATION. ALL THE PROFESSORS SAID THE TEST IS GONE WELL, VERY WELL. THE LAST TEST ENDED AFTER 120 HOURS OF UNINTERRUPTED OPERATION OF THE REACTORS ( THE NEW GENERATION OF HOT CATS IS MADE BY A TWO STAGE SYSTEM, MADE WITH AN ACTIVATOR WITH RESISTANCES COUPLED WITH A KIND OF CHARGE, WHICH ACTIVATES THE E-CAT WITH A DIFFERENT CHARGE. THE EFFECT IS STUNNING, WE SAW IN OUR PRIVATE TESTS, AND HAS BEEN REPLICATED BY THE THIRD INDIPENDENT PARTY.
NOW WE PASS TO THE INDUSTRIAL ENGAGEMENTS: WE HAVE TO DELIVER OUR PLANTS BY THE END OF APRIL.
WARM REGARDS,
ANDREA ROSSI

What is interesting is the history of HUG and the fact that HUG is investing $500,000 annually in LENR research.  Given the impressive work they have been doing and the speed with which they have moved, it was clear that they were putting a lot of time and money into the effort.  The article gives some interesting background on the company, which shows a proven track record and patience/persistence with working towards goals.

The Hunt’s focus on sustainable living is supported by profits from a wildly successful invention Paul devised in the 1990s. The self-taught inventor patented the “turtle meter,” which allows utility companies to remotely read electric power meters.

Hunt sold his invention for tens of millions. His company now is using the money for research and development, searching for the next breakthrough invention to sustain the company and its 20 employees.

…

Company founder Paul Hunt is patient. He thought up his turtle meter idea 25 years before the device became reality. He hopes that low-energy nuclear reactions technology will also result in a long term payoff.

“We know it’s a risk, and we think the payback is potentially bigger than the risk, so that’s why we’re doing it,” he said.

Hunt believes in the technology enough to invest more than half a million dollars annually into its research.

This is very encouraging in that they have a successful history in the energy field and the funding to research LENR.  One can compare their track-record with a number of the other start-ups in the field.

In other news, HUG has rapidly moved ahead with their work on accurate calorimetry.  The group abandoned the larger air flow calorimeter they had been working on for a very interesting and sleek tube calorimeter with several internal LED lights indicating aspects of the device’s status.  This is a smart move and should generate additional interest–particularly if they are able to confirm their previous, promising, results with the Celani replication cell.

As this author has conducted over 90 electrolysis experiments as of this writing, alternative experimental setups are of interest.  Abundo is utilizing a variac into a bridge rectifier (to convert the AC current from the rectifier to DC) and a tungsten welding rod as a cathode.  Of interest is how it takes a higher power level to initiate what appears to be plasma electrolysis, and then Abundo is able to turn down the power significantly while maintaining the plasma.  Abundo plans to demonstrate the assembly of a more complex setup in a future video.

“Unbeknownst to the general public, dynamically active nuclear processes are presently occurring in tens of millions of households worldwide,” Larsen told me.

“Fortunately, there aren’t any radiological health risks associated with CFLs because no hard radiation is emitted from them, ” Larsen said, “ and no environmentally hazardous, long-lived radioactive isotopes are typically created by LENRs (low energy nuclear reactions).”

Larsen has suspected low energy nuclear reactions occur in CFLs, he told me, and is encouraged by a February study of used bulbs that found isotopes of mercury that more conventional theories cannot explain.

It seems hasty to conclude that LENR is taking place in these bulbs, and it might be better for Larsen to use more qualifiers when he speaks (e.g., could, maybe, possibly).  That said, it would certainly be interesting if the proof needed to confirm LENR resides in something as common as a CFL bulb.  Fortunately, Larsen does qualify his statements more later in the article.

“If this outstanding new data is substantiated by further experimentation, it provides yet more proof that LENRs are likely to be a truly ‘green,’ safe nuclear technology.”

Larsen hopes to demonstrate that low-energy nuclear reactions are safe, green and commonplace in part to distinguish them from fission reactions that produce dangerous ionizing radiation in conventional reactors. He has found evidence of LENRs occurring in lithium-ion batteries, catalytic converters, and naturally in bacterial processes and lightning.

It’s not difficult to imagine an experiment to explore this matter further.  Simply perform before and after isotopic analyses on the bulbs.  If the isotopic distribution of mercury after using the bulbs is different from the analysis before using them, then you have some strong evidence of transmutation.  Hopefully, this can be followed up on by researchers capable of such analyses.  Apparently the authors of the study did compare unused to used bulbs (see chart below).

LENR-Gen Module

George Miley’s LENR technology is once again up for voting on the Future Energy website. It appears that this site is connected with ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy), and the results of the voting may put Miley in a good position to present at a pitch event. This may help Miley to obtain needed funding to further his goals in commercializing LENR technology.

Please go and vote for Dr. Miley’s project to help advance LENR.

Dr. Miley’s listing from the site:

Provide one sentence describing your core technology.

LENR Power Units use pressurized hydrogen –nickel nanoparticles undergoing low energy nuclear reactions to create a very high energy density heat source configured for co-generation power for home or industrial distributed power

Short description of your technology

The recent discovery of practical applications of low energy nuclear reactions has created much activity and interest worldwide. Several companies, including LENUCO, have entered this business. Our approach using hydrogen loaded nanoparticles to produce heat that is converted to electrical output offers many advantages. Lenuco was founded to commercialize this technology and has a two-pronged business model. One prong is to manufacture small to medium range distributed power sources for home and industrial use. The second prong is to provide develop the technology for use by in Army bases, both homeland and in forward facilities, for a main power source. Both uses capitalize on the high power density and low maintenance, radiation free, long lifetime characteristics of LENR power cells.

What is the key element of your technology that differentiates it from existing solutions

LENUCO’s LENR power source is a revolutionary new technology based on high pressure hydrogen loading of nickel alloy based nanoparticles. Heat is produced by the resulting low energy nuclear reactions through a process which avoids any significant radioactivity. Uses range from home heating to central heating units. Compared to other renewable energy, LENR power units offer two distinct advantages: 24/7 operation and higher power density, hence significantly smaller units per unit power. LENR cells also provide power without greenhouse emissions and with no significant wastes. These advantages plus minimum maintenance and long lifetime result in a distinct economic advantage over other renewable energy sources as reflected by shorter pay-back times than solar, wind or fuel cells.

So what’s the hitch? It’s creating the right oscillation. “It turns out that the frequencies that we have to work at are in what I call a valley of inaccessibility,” Zawodny said. “Between, say, 5 or 7 THz and 30 THz, we don’t have any really good sources to make our own controlled frequency.”

But solving that problem can wait until the theory is better understood. “From my perspective, this is still a physics experiment,” Zawodny said. “I’m interested in understanding whether the phenomenon is real, what it’s all about. Then the next step is to develop the rules for engineering. Once you have that, I’m going to let the engineers have all the fun.”

Joseph Zawodny and Dennis Bushnell have previously discussed their specially designed chip that will allow multiple simultaneous experiments to test aspects of the Widom-Larsen theory of LENR. We don’t learn anything about the status of any ongoing experiments in this article. It does appear that they want to keep their LENR work in the news, which has happened with several news outlets picking up the story (The Guardian Express, Forbes, ExtremeTech). It is understandable that Zawodny and Bushnell would want to embrace the Widom-Larsen theory of LENR that purportedly removes the “fusion” from cold fusion; however, they run the risk of tunnel blindness and running into a dead end if their effort fails. It would be preferable if more care was taken in noting that the W-L theory is just one of many theories.