Andrea Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat)
May 4th, 2011If you are a faculty member of a university physics department (or other related discipline) and would like a comment to appear here, please email me from your university account. Know that your full name will appear along with the comment.
Via: NyTeknik:
In a detailed report, two Swedish physicists exclude chemical reactions as the energy source in the Italian ‘energy catalyzer’. The two physicists recently supervised a new test of the device in Bologna, Italy.
“In some way a new kind of physics is taking place. It’s enigmatic, but probably no new laws of nature are involved. We believe it is possible to explain the process with known laws of nature,” said Hanno Essén, associate professor of theoretical physics and a lecturer at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and … member of the board (chairman until April 2) of the Swedish Skeptics Society.
Essén and Professor Emeritus at Uppsala University Sven Kullander, also chairman of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Energy Committee, both participated on 29 March as observers at a new trial in Bologna of the so-called ‘energy catalyzer’, which could be based on cold fusion, or LENR, Low Energy Nuclear Reaction.
Participants included the inventor of the device, Andrea Rossi, his scientific advisor Professor Sergio Focardi, and physicists Dr. David Bianchini and Dr. Giuseppe Levi from Bologna University who both supervised the first public demonstration of the E-cat on 14 January 2011 in Bologna, Italy.
The new trial was conducted in much the same way as the trial in January, and lasted for nearly six hours. According to observations by Kullander and Essén, a total energy of about 25 kWh was generated.
In a detailed report (download here), they write:
“Any chemical process should be ruled out for producing 25 kWh from whatever is in a 50 cubic centimeter container. The only alternative explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives rise to the measured energy production.”
The power output was estimated to about 4.4 kW. It’s barely half the power compared with the two previous documented experiments in January and February 2011, because the trial was made with a new and smaller version of the energy catalyzer.
The new trial was the first officially documented with the smaller version which, according to Rossi, is more stable.
“With the smaller version we avoid the power peaks that occurred at ignition and switching off,” Andrea Rossi told Ny Teknik.
He also stated that the smaller version will be used for the planned installation of about one megawatt for the pilot customer Defkalion Green Technologies in Greece.
According to Rossi, a total of 300 reactors connected in series and parallel, will be used in the installation. Originally 100 reactors of the version that delivered 10 kW of power during earlier trials, were supposedly planned for the one-megawatt installation. Rossi still expects the inauguration to take place in October 2011.
More:
Swedish Skeptics Confirm “Nuclear Process” in Tiny 4.7 kW Reactor
Ny Teknik Tested the Energy Catalyzer
Lewan Investigates and Observes Rossi Device
PESN: Directory:Andrea A. Rossi Cold Fusion Generator (E-Cat)
New Energy Times: Rossi Energy-Catalyzer (E-Cat) Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction Device Portal
Blackwater’s New Ethics Chief: John Ashcroft
May 4th, 2011Via: Wired:
The consortium in charge of restructuring the world’s most infamous private security firm just added a new chief in charge of keeping the company on the straight and narrow. Yes, John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, is now an “independent director” of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater.
Ashcroft will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” its backers announced early Wednesday in a statement, an entity designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private security industry.”
In other words, no more shooting civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan; no more signing for weapons its guards aren’t authorized to carry in warzones; no more impersonations of cartoon characters to acquire said weaponry; and no more ‘roids and coke on the job.
The Global Economy’s Corporate Crime Wave
May 4th, 2011Via: Project Syndicate:
The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries – those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich countries that host the global companies that carry out the largest offenses. Money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.
Recovery: About 1 in 7 in U.S. Receive Food Stamps
May 4th, 2011Via: Christian Science Monitor:
As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn it appears that participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise.
In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed the last peak set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina.
The latest data released by the Department of Agriculture shows that in February, an additional 11,517 new recipients were added to the food stamps program, an increase of 11.65% on a year-over-year basis, while household participation increased 13.97%.
Individual participation as a ratio of the overall civilian non-institutional population has increased 10.78% over the same period.
Japanese Government Raises ‘Safe’ Radiation Limits So Children Can Legally Attend Schools That Have Been Covered in Fallout from Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
May 4th, 2011Via: Guardian:
Furious parents in Fukushima have delivered a bag of radioactive playground earth to education officials in protest at moves to weaken nuclear safety standards in schools.
Children can now be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously permissible. The new regulations have prompted outcry. A senior adviser resigned and the prime minister, Naoto Kan, was criticised by politicians from his own party.
Ministers have defended the increase in the acceptable safety level from 1 to 20 millisieverts per year as a necessary measure to guarantee the education of hundreds of thousands of children in Fukushima prefecture, location of the nuclear plant that suffered a partial meltdown and several explosions after the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.
It is estimated that 75% of Fukushima’s schools may have radiation levels above the old safety level of 1 millisievert. The local authorities in Koriyama have tried to ease the problem by digging up the top layer of soil in school and day centre playgrounds, but residents near the proposed dump site have objected.
The new standard of 20 millisieverts a year – equivalent to the annual maximum dose for German nuclear workers – will mean those schools remain open, but parents and nuclear opponents are angry that safety concerns are being ignored.
Deutsche Bank Faces U.S. Fraud Lawsuit Over Mortgage Lending
May 3rd, 2011via: Bloomberg:
Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Germany’s biggest bank, was sued for more than $1 billion by the U.S. government, which claims it “repeatedly lied” so that thousands of risky mortgages qualified for a government insurance program.
The Frankfurt-based bank and its MortgageIT unit falsely certified that borrowers didn’t face risk of default, qualifying the loans for insurance by the Housing and Urban Development Department’s Federal Housing Administration, according to a complaint filed today in Manhattan federal court.
The bank and MortgageIT masked problem loans through “egregious” violations of HUD rules for analyzing the income and creditworthiness of borrowers, the Justice Department said. MortgageIT endorsed more than 39,000 loans for FHA insurance after 1999, making them “highly marketable for resale,” the U.S. said. Of those, 12,500 defaulted.
Army Corps Detonates Explosives on Flood Levee
May 3rd, 2011Via: Reuters:
The government on Monday detonated explosives to blow a hole in a flood levee on the Mississippi River and save several towns from being inundated, including Cairo, Illinois.
Six plumes of flame rose from the area of the explosion and a loud boom was heard at about 10 p.m. local time, a Reuters journalist near the site of the action said.
Related: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Moves 265 Tons of Explosives Into Position to Breach Birds Point Levee
Resisting the Rise of the Machines as Marketing Meme to Sell Cars?
May 3rd, 2011Via: Dodge / YouTube:
Related: Life in Touchscreen Hell
Japan: Kan, “Will Study the Possibility of Setting Up an Alternative Capital to Take Over Tokyo’s Role in an Emergency”
May 2nd, 2011Via: NHK:
Kan said measures were not taken despite previous accidents and warnings, and that he must admit that the utility and the government failed to fully deal with the situation.
He also suggested that he will study the possibility of setting up an alternative capital to take over Tokyo’s role in an emergency, saying that measures must be taken to secure the continuity of the capital’s central functions.
Britain: Wind Power Companies Paid to Stop Producing Electricity
May 2nd, 2011Via: BBC:
Six Scottish windfarms were paid up to £300,000 to stop producing energy, it has emerged.
The turbines, at a range of sites across Scotland, were stopped because the grid network could not absorb all the energy they generated.
Details of the payments emerged following research by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF).
The REF said energy companies were paid £900,000 to halt the turbines for several hours between 5 and 6 April.
According to the REF research, the payments made cost up to 20 times the value of the electricity that would have been generated if the turbines had kept running.
