The Rossi Device - Implications for Investment if It Turns Out To Be The Real Thing

[sunskyfan]

Re: The Rossi Device - Implications for Investment if It Turns Out To Be The Real Thing

The question has to be raised: what is the upside to fraud here? Yes, I know that this reaches the credibility of a Goldman Sacks IPO already but that doesn't seem to be the angle. They may be stupid but this doesn't smell like a scam.

[c1ue]

Re: The Rossi Device - Implications for Investment if It Turns Out To Be The Real Thing

20 grams of nickel (atomic weight=58.69) thus equals 20/58.69 x 6.022 x 10 exp 23 molecules changed = .34 x 10 exp 23 atoms of nickel.

According to above formula, and assuming low to zero gamma radiation - since Rossi seems to be traipsing around without a lead suit - the amount of nickel converted is thus 0.34 x 10 exp 23 (molecules) x 1.6 x 10 exp -13 (joules per Mev) x 1 (Mev per nickel atom fused) = 0.545 x 10 exp 10 joules

It also noted 1 Mev = 1.6 x 10 exp -13 joules - and I'm assuming the fusion of hydrogen with 1 nickel atom only yields 1 Mev, guaranteed to be a low estimate.

1 kwh = 3.6 x 10 exp 6 joules, thus the process should have created 1,513 kwh (assuming 1 Mev=atom Nickel fused).

According to the latest article, the apparatus actually created 4.69 Kw for 6 hours = 28 kwh

So where's the missing 1,485 kwh? Either the water is REALLY hot, or there are gamma rays spraying in all directions, or else there is something fundamentally wrong with the atomic fusion process described by the standard model.

Of course the correct method should be:

(mass of nickel + h) - mass of Cu(63) * 931 Mev/amu = ? Mev

Copper atomic weight is 63.546
Nickel atomic weight from above is 58.69
H weight is 1.007825

I don't see from these numbers how so much nickel can convert to so little actual measurable energy, not to mention where the extra neutrons are coming from.

The question has to be raised: what is the upside to fraud here? Yes, I know that this reaches the credibility of a Goldman Sacks IPO already but that doesn't seem to be the angle. They may be stupid but this doesn't smell like a scam.

Let's see:

1) international adulation
2) 1 MW power plant being built in Greece on this principle
3) No doubt investors wanting to 'get in early'
4) Just being wrong, but not evil

[ASH]

Re: The Rossi Device - Implications for Investment if It Turns Out To Be The Real Thing

One way to do a sanity check is to look at the energy difference between reactants and products. Nuclear energy will be released if the binding energy of the products is larger than the binding energy of the reactants (nuclear binding energy is a negative quantity, so this represents a reduction in the energy of the system, and net release of energy). The hydrogen has no nuclear binding energy, since its nucleus is a lone proton. As for the nickel, 94% of naturally occurring nickel is in the form of one of two isotopes:

Ni-58 abundance is 68%.
Ni-60 abundance is 26%.

Therefore, if about 21% of the nickel was transmuted into copper or iron, then most of it had to start out as either Ni-58 or Ni-60. Since no reaction path is specified, one has to assume that either or both isotopes were converted in an unknown ratio. The sanity check is based at finding the lowest possible amount of energy that could have been produced, so without knowing the actual blend, one would make a calculation based upon the combination of isotopes giving the smallest change in nuclear binding energy (minimum possible energy release):

Ni-58 = 8.732041 MeV per nucleon * 58 nucleons = 506.5 MeV
Ni-60 = 8.780757 MeV per nucleon * 60 nucleons = 526.8 MeV

Cu-63 = 8.752134 MeV per nucleon * 63 nucleons = 551.4 MeV
Cu-65 = 8.757096 MeV per nucleon * 65 nucleons = 569.2 MeV

So, the least amount of energy that could have been released transmuting nickel to copper would be Ni-60 --> Cu-63. (And, mind you, the only ways to get from either isotope of nickel to either isotope of copper are pretty tortuous, and require repeated fusion of hydrogen to the products of prior fusion reactions -- and possible branches involving the decay of some unstable intermediates. Whether any of those reaction channels would actually operate, and on what time scale, is a kinetic problem dependent upon reaction rates -- and since we're positing some 'secret sauce' physics here to explain the basic nuclear reaction, we can't reach any firm conclusions about rates and branching fractions.)

Based on the above binding energy numbers, the minimum energy yield for fusing nickel to copper is about 24.6 MeV per nucleus. So, lets say that 10% of 50 grams of Ni-60 is converted to Cu-63 (the 10% comes from the claim about transmutation in the article). That's 5 grams of Ni at 9.95174E-26 kg per Ni-60 nucleus, or about 5.0E+22 nickel nuclei. The energy yield at 24.6 MeV per nucleus is 5.0E+22 * 24.6 MeV = 1.23E+30 eV = 1.97E+11 Joules. The sample was inside Rossi's machine for 2.5 months (~6.7E+6 seconds), so assuming a uniform burn, the posited transmutation of 5 grams of nickel to copper would generate heat at a minimum rate of 29.4 kW. That seems to be higher than the 10-15 kW rate claimed as the highest rate of production for Rossi's device, and this assumes continuous operation of the device for 2.5 months; the peak output power would have to be higher for non-continuous operation. Also, this doesn't include the energy yield from the other half of the nickel that supposedly was transmuted to iron.

My preliminary conclusion is that the quantitative claims about the production of copper and iron from nickel don't match up with the reported energy release. Also, given the convoluted reaction sequence required to get to stable copper from the naturally-occurring mix of nickel isotopes (the early products of which are radioactive on a time scale that should be easy to measure), I think there would be abundant evidence of the intermediate transmutation products in partially-reacted fuel. I think we should wait to hear that the isotope abundance pattern found by mass spectrometry for the copper and iron supposedly produced by transmutation is different from the natural distribution, and that evidence of the first stage radioactive intermediates of hydrogen-nickel fusion have been observed, before crediting this claim.

[Chris Coles]

Re: The Rossi Device - Implications for Investment if It Turns Out To Be The Real Thing

The best way to show the potential is to set up a vehicle with a reactor and a steam engine attached and keep it running, day in day out on a public track where there would be no chance at all of any additional power supply to the vehicle. If their projections are correct, then the vehicle will still be running a week or more without refuelling.

[rabot10]

Re: The Rossi Device - Implications for Investment if It Turns Out To Be The Real Thing

;0 lol Ash i have no idea, and the more I read from U the more I know you don't either, let's seeeeeeeeeeee

[jiimbergin]

Re: The Rossi Device - Implications for Investment if It Turns Out To Be The Real Thing

;0 lol Ash i have no idea, and the more I read from U the more I know you don't either, let's seeeeeeeeeeee

I don't know either, but ASH talks a good story if he really has no idea