How this 12 x 2 inch miracle tube could halve heating bills

[whosinpower]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=481996&in_page_id=1965

snip - It sounds too good to be true - not to mention the fact that it violates almost every known law of physics.

But British scientists claim they have invented a revolutionary device that seems to 'create' energy from virtually nothing.

Their so-called thermal energy cell could soon be fitted into ordinary homes, halving domestic heating bills and making a major contribution towards cutting carbon emissions.

[Kajsa]

1. Interesting..

But more testing is needed to see if
this actually works.

If so, it's a great way to save energy.

[TlalocW]

2. *Yawn*

Once again, another energy from nothing device that will save us all. If it appears to be violating the laws of physics then there are two possibilities:

1. The people taking the data/running the experiment are sloppy
2. The people trying to convince people it works are liars and temporarily fooling others

All energy from nothing devices/perpetual motion machines/etc. fall into one of these two categories.

TlalocW

[pscot]

3. There are laws of physics that we know

and there are laws of physics that we don't know. Then there are the unknown laws of physics that we don't know we don't know. Therefore, violating the known laws of physics is not only a good thing, it is an essential quality of breakthrough technologies that appear to have magical properties. Remember, they all laughed at cold fusion, and we know how that turned out.

[phantom power]

4. People laughed at cold fusion...

when they found out Pons+Fleischman were doing bad science. And nobody could replicate their results. And they'd been trying to cover it up.

Also, the *concept* of "cold fusion" didn't really violate any fundamental physics. Everybody knew that fusion could produce energy. The idea was that P+F had found a way to catalyze the process, and reduce the energy barrier that required the intense heat. It turned out that wasn't what they'd done, and they had been sucked down a path of trying to cover up their mistake, instead of just admitting it.

[pscot]

11. My bad.

I know what Pons and Fleischman did. I thought I could get away with a little irony here. It seemed pretty broad to me.

[DramaOnHwy61]

12. cold fusion debunked? Look again...

There was no such thing as a cover-up. The F+P cell reproducibly worked, but their **theory** was flawed. In fact, Fleischmann, who had been working on this since the '60s, resisted any open publication because his theory (explanation) was not yet complete.
Pons, however, wanted to go ahead and "show off". And that became the fateful press conference we all know.

In February 2002, a laboratory within the United States Navy released a report that came to the conclusion that the cold fusion phenomenon was in fact real and deserved official funding for research. Navy researchers have published more than 40 papers on cold fusion. (Wikipedia)

Here's the very interesting TR, and an excerpt: http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/tr/1862/tr1862-vol1.pdf

In 2004, the United States Department of Energy decided to take another look at cold fusion to determine if its policies towards cold fusion should be altered due to new experimental evidence. They set up a panel on cold fusion. The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in D/Pd systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review.

Having said that on cold fusion, I don't think the 12" tube is necessarily cold fusion. The materials are different, the construction is different, so it may be something else. Provided it works, who really cares?

[TlalocW]

5. Cold Fusion?

You mean the crap from Fleischmann-Pons in 1989 whose results could never be reproduced by other scientists (a required step in the scientific method), and the research experiments into it today are still plagued by poor design, poor understanding of the equations involved, and that the production of energy from cold fusion reactions is still a fraction of the amount of energy used to create them (which is in line with the laws of physics).

You can't get something from nothing.

One does not violate the laws of science. Theories are modified as needed, and cold fusion has not prompted the need to modify the law of conservation of energy nor the laws of thermodynamics. It might as well be lumped with Intelligent Design when compared to real science.

TlalocW

[whosinpower]

6. There is a third possibility

The laws of physics are incomplete.

And, if you read the entire article, you would know that there is a catalyst involved that produces heat when combined with potash. So, it isn't something from nothing.

[TlalocW]

7. Fine...

It's a lot of energy from "almost" nothing. Every system promising more energy out than what is put in has failed to change the laws of physics.

TlalocW

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Dupe. Posted, debunked.

[whosinpower]

9. Sorry

Where is the dupe post?
How was it debunked?
I could not find it - is it here under envirnmental/energy??????

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Posted in LBN and Science a few days ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=34020&mesg_id=34020
Didn't post the link earlier because it was only a couple of days old and in LBN, but I see you don't have a star so can't search, so here you go.

Follow the links to earlier "research" of this group -- yes, they are claiming fusion at room temp, insisting it's not the same thing as "cold fusion". Here's a link to a fuller article: http://www.rexresearch.com/eccles/1eccles.htm#telegr

More criticism, along the lines of "many hypotheses, one outcome" are in my response to that post. Note this does not constitue disproof, only shows the hypothesis is unnecessary, so no basis to claim proof. And since they are making some really extraordinary hypotheses, they need extraordinary evidence. All they have is an energy balance "anomaly" which looks remarkably like it could be just errors in measurement.

I didn't even address the "human factor" side of things, which is that people have been carrying out electrolysis of aqueous solutions, including brines containing potassium ions (a supposed 'catalyst' for fusion in this claim), for decades, on an industrial scale, all around the world. It is rather implausible that in ALL THOSE YEARS of similar setups no such effect would have been observed, if it in fact existed.

Finally, if these guys are claiming to have created a new state of hydrogen, the obvious way to prove it is by spectroscopy. In fact, it would have made a lot more sense to do spectroscopy first, then try to make the substance on a larger scale. Claiming to have made a new substance in the absence of spectroscopic evidence is like trying to prove a murder with no corpse, no weapon, and no witnesses. All these guys have is motive -- motive to BELIEVE their own theories.