2012年7月22日日曜日

E-Catの豪州販売会社スタート

オーストラリアにE-Catの販売会社が立ち上がったようです。ロッシ氏のレオナルド社からライセンスを得ており、商圏はオーストラリア、東南アジア、太平洋島諸国となっています。スローガンは、「Tomorrows Energy, Today(未来のエネルギーを今日から)」です。 
Webページはまだ素朴な感じで、掲載されている資材もどこかで見たようなものが多いのですが、先頭ページにある広告ビデオは新作です。

以下がそのビデオです。とてもストレートに、E-Catが安くてクリーンなエネルギー源である事を訴求しています。また、E-Cat Worldに指摘されていたように、最後の方で太陽電池パネルとの併用を謳っている点が目を引きます。現状では少なくとも最初にE-Catを駆動するのに電力が必要なので、こういった組み合わせは有効かもしれません。

以上

工業高校生の作った常温核融合装置Athanorの追試準備

Leopoldo Pirelli工業高校の常温核融合装置ATHANOR」に書いたAthanorですが、22passiブログのDaniele Passeriniさんが続報を載せています(原文英語への自動翻訳)。

以下はGoogleで自動翻訳したものです。日本語での注釈は私がつけました。Athanorが重要なのは、実験の装置を安価に揃えられ、そのやり方が公開されている「オープンソース」になっている点です。検証をやろうとしている人達は(当たり前の事ながら)その成果に疑いを持っているようですが、このような形で追試が進めば、どこまで再現性があるのか明らかになっていくと思います。期待しましょう。


Saturday, July 21, 2012
Athanor Update (21/07/12)
After an email exchange took place last night, I can update you on the face of current developments in Athanor, who in turn goes on three lines, which soon led to some concrete results.

In summary.

1) On 14 July in Caserta Domenico Cirillo, Ugo Abundo and others have encountered: It was actually a profound situation and have been programmed the essential lines of evidence that Cyril lead in their laboratory. The collaboration with Cyril is full; Abundo has left a clone, specially built for him.
(ここに名前の挙がっておられる方々が打ち合わせを行なって検証の話を進めているようです)

2) In Rome, other replicas will be held in an independent laboratory made available by a major company in hi-tech. The company also has allowed one of his employees ( I called [XXX] in a previous post ) to look after the test: it is an electronics expert who over the past two months has already given us many tips to the group of ' Pirelli IIS on the development of control systems and measures for the Athanor. The tests have not yet started due to some urgent orders received by the company. However, during this weekend, even to this second "research center" Abundo deliver a reactor to start work immediately.
(ローマではハイテク分野の某企業で複数のレプリカを使った検証の話が進んでいるようで、一人のエキスパートがアサインされて作業を進めているらしい。この2ヶ月間の作業で制御システムと計測について既に多くの改善をもたらしているとの事。検証はまだ始まっていないようですが、この週末には検証を開始できる状態になるようです。)

3) Of course there is a third laboratory that deals dell'Athanor, that of the same Abundo .
(これ以外にも「第三の」研究所が元のAthanorと同じ装置を使っているらしい)

At the next update.



以上

2012年7月14日土曜日

米国DARPAは常温核融合研究の予算を申請

Next Big Future誌に以下の記事が載りました。

JULY 12, 2012
DARPA Nanotech Projects -$34 million investigating cold fusion and excess heat was found
また、この記事を見て、E-Cat Worldにも論点を要約した記事が出ています。

参照されている元文書の表紙は以下のような感じです。
これは、米国のDARPA(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency:国防高等研究計画局)のFiscal Year (FY) 2013 President's Budget Submission(2013年度予算申請書?)です。この中に、常温核融合研究を含むと思われる研究テーマがあり、予算額は2011年度から2013年度の3年間で約30億円(約34百万ドル)です。DARPAが既に2011年度から予算計上していたとは驚きです。

但し、このテーマの説明文には、Cold FusionやLENRといった言葉は一度も現れません。しかし、重水素をローディングしたパラジウムの微細構造とか、過剰熱の制御といった、常温核融合にお馴染みの言葉が現れているのです。よくこんな記述を発見したものだと感心します。

注目すべきは、「 excess heat generation and life expectancy of power cells in collaboration with the Italian Department of Energy」と、過剰熱を発生するセルの研究ではイタリアのエネルギー省と協力しているという記述です。関連は不明ですが、ロッシ氏のE-Catの最初の1MWプラントの最終テストがイタリアのボローニャで行われ、そこからどこか秘密の顧客に納品された事を思い出します。
以下、元の文書から該当部分を引用します(赤字は引用者によります)。



Title: 


Fundamentals of Nanoscale and Emergent Effects and Engineered Devices

Description: 


The Fundamentals of Nanoscale and Emergent Effects and Engineered Devices program seeks to understand and exploit physical phenomena for developing more efficient and powerful devices. This includes developing devices and structures to enable controllable photonic devices at multiple wavelengths, engineering palladium microstructures with large deuterium loadings to study absorption thermodynamics and effects, enabling real-time detection as well as analysis of signals and molecules and origin of emergent behavior in correlated electron devices, and developing stabilization and scale-up methods to fabricate high pressure crystal structures at low pressures. Arrays of engineered nanoscale devices will result in an order of magnitude (10 to 100 times) reduction in the time required for analysis and identification of known and unknown (engineered) molecules. This program will develop novel nanomaterials for exquisitely precise purification of materials, enabling such diverse applications as oxygen generation and desalination, ultra-high sensitivity magnetic sensors, and correlated electron effects such as superconductivity. This program will compare the phenomenology of various biological, physical and social systems and abstract the common features that are responsible for their properties of self-organization, emergent behavior, and physical intelligence.

FY 2011 Accomplishments:


  • Demonstrated a 50 percent yield for the fabrication of the magnetic sensors based on multiferroic composites, in a lot size of 10 units which have outputs (volt/tesla values) within 10 percent of the specification.
  • Demonstrated a 50 percent yield for the fabrication of the magnetic sensors based on atomic vapor cells, in a lot size of 10 units which have outputs (volt/tesla values) within 10 percent of the specification.
  • Demonstrated a multiferroic magnetic sensor with an optical circuit read-out.
  • Determined the  requirements for a unified theory for a non-biological system to demonstrate biological-like physical intelligence and showed how it is consistent with thermodynamic and other physical principles.
  • Using a combination of simulation and real system hardware, conducted limited demonstrations of self-organizing electronic and chemical systems imbedded in environments of limited complexity and responding to environmental pressures.
  • Formalized preliminary model systems and evaluated the initial physical intelligence theory's ability to describe the candidate electronic, physical, and chemical systems.
  • Refined analytical tools to measure intelligence and demonstrate them on complex, real world systems and their associated data, such as human subject data and social networks.
  • Developed more complex demonstrations with multiple stimuli and feedback considerations and extended the theoretical and analytical tools to more complex systems.
  • Continued quantification of material parameters that control degree of increase in excess heat generation and life expectancy of power cells in collaboration with the Italian Department of Energy. Established ability to extend active heat generation time from minutes to 2.5 days for pressure-activated power cells.

FY 2012 Plans:

  • Verify the initial unified physical intelligence theory and justify its underlying assumptions in the context of model systems that supports the emergence and evolution of novel structure.
  • Expand the theoretical effort to include casual entropy and address correlated effects such as self-organized criticality, renormalization, scaling, and punctuated equilibrium.
  • Demonstrate the spontaneous, abiotic evolution and complex spatial and temporal organization in electro-chemical-physical systems in response to structure and resources from the environment.
  • Quantify the emergent hierarchical structures that evolve from the demonstrated electro-chemical-physical systems.
  • Demonstrate the ability to design an evolving electro-chemical-physical system and direct its evolution toward specified objectives in the form of a challenge problem or application.
  • Initiate development of computational tools to formulate processing pathways to stabilize and scale up high pressure crystal phases.
  • Establish scalability and scaling parameters in excess heat generation processes in collaboration with the Italian Department of Energy.

FY 2013 Plans:

  • Initiate efforts to identify and characterize metastable solid phases of gaseous materials that have superior mechanical/functional properties.
  • Initiate development of synthesis techniques for producing extended solids at temperature and pressures amenable to scale up.
以上

常温核融合エネルギー自動車のベンチャーLENR Cars

ILENRS-12で常温核融合を熱源とする電気自動車計画を披露」で紹介したベンチャー企業LENR Cars社のホームページは以下に公開されています。

http://ecatcar.org/home.php?hl=en


まだ情報が殆ど掲載されていませんが、冒頭に目標スペックが簡潔に記されています。例によって勝手に和訳してみました。なかなか魅力的ですね。

The perfect autonomous and maintenance free car(完璧に自律的に動作するメインテナンスフリー自動車)

  • electric batteries are autonomously recharged over night
    (バッテリーは夜間に自律的に充電される)
  • a single refill of fuel is enough to drive 45'000 km
    (一つの燃料リフィルで4万5千キロは走行できる)
  • one refill costs $200 and is enough for a year
    (燃料リフィルの価格は200ドルで一年は持つ)

A true sedan with no compromise on comfort(本物のセダンであり、妥協無く乗り心地を追求)

  • 5 adult seats, 1400 liters trunk
    (5人乗り、1400リットルのトランク)
  • 210 km/h max speed and 0 to 100 km/h in 4.4 seconds
    (最高時速210キロ、時速100キロまでの加速に4.4秒)
  • 900 km of drive available per week or 130 km per day on average
    (1週間に900キロ、一日に平均130キロの走行を想定)
  • a range up to 500km on a single drive with plug in for more range
    (一回のドライブは500キロまで、更に走行するにはプラグ(充電?)が必要)

The perfect ecological car(完璧なエコカー)

  • no emission: no CO2, not waste of any kind
    (二酸化炭素の発生無し、廃棄物無し)
  • almost no footprint per refill, refill cartridges are based on nickel powder
    (リフィルは無視できる程度に小さい。リフィルの基本はニッケルパウダー)
以上

2012年7月9日月曜日

ILENRS-12で発表された常温核融合市場展望

ILENRS-12シンポジウムでは、エネルギー分野の技術コンサルタントが、常温核融合市場の展望について発表していたようです。これまた非常に興味深い資料なのですが、読んでる時間もないので、本日は紹介まで。
Final Lenr Market Development Ilents12 Ppt03 By Jim Dunn

以上

Lattice Energy LLCによるカーボン常温核融合の研究

常温核融合のベンチャーの一つに、Lattice Energy LLCという会社があります。今まで殆ど取り上げた事がないのは、常温核融合の実験や商品ではなく、理論的な解明への取り組みで有名だったためです。この会社の創立者であるLuwis Larsen氏は、Widom-Larsen Theoryと名付けた理論を展開しています。例えば、New Energy Timesを運営しているKrivit氏はこの理論に惚れ込んでいるようで、以下のようなポータルサイトもできています。

私には、理論はさっぱりわからないので話題にする事もなかったのですが、最近、以下のような興味深いスライドが公開されていると知りました。

このスライドの中でかろうじて読めたのは以下のページですが、ここには非常に面白い事が書いてあります。2つの研究機関の実験で、2本の超純水なカーボンを超純度の水の中で放電させたら、それまでには存在しなかった元素Fe(1箇所ではNi, Crも)が出現したと言うのです。実験のミスやコンタミ(混入)でなかったとしたら、これは常温で起こる核変換現象ではないのか・・という事で、自分の理論を当てはめて考察しているようです。従来の常温核融合実験と全く違うのは、電極となっているのは水素吸蔵金属ではなく、カーボンだという点です。そして、カーボンの特殊な形態であるグラフェンの表面で起こる現象が鍵を握ると考えているようです。
中身はさっぱり分かりませんが、炭素でも常温核変換が起こるのかもしれない・・というのは、非常に面白い研究です。期待しましょう。


  • Independent, substantially similar LENR experiments were conducted by two teams, one at Texas A&M University (USA) and other at Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC - India) with high-current electric arc discharges between two ultrapure Carbon rod electrodes in ultrapure water (ordinary H2O). Both groups observed essentially the same anomalous post-experiment results; namely, that stable metallic elements (both reported detecting substantial amounts of Fe; BARC also found detectable Ni, and Cr) that had not been previously present anywhere inside apparatus and appeared to have somehow been created ab initio during arcing processes. Detailed mass-balance analyses of Fe, the most abundant apparent product, strongly suggested that elemental Iron (Fe) with ~normal isotope ratios had somehow been created during experiments. Since chemical processes cannot create new stable elements where no such elements had been present before, either both teams’ experimental observations were erroneous, and/or contamination may have occurred, or nuclear transmutation processes had produced the observed results
  • Both teams’ reported data were published in 1994 as two papers in a peer-reviewed journal, Fusion Technology (American Nuclear Society). To explain their incredible data, the Texas A&M team further proposed a highly speculative and physically improbable heavy element fusion mechanism: 2 6C12 + 2 8O18 ⇒ 26Fe56 + 2He4 . This conjectured “cold” fusion mechanism was not generally believed by the nuclear physics community; thus these retrospectively important experimental results simply languished, largely ignored and still unexplained, until 2009
  • In a Lattice SlideShare presentation dated Sept. 3, 2009, we applied Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs (WLT) to finally explain these ca. 1994 experimental results (for readers’ convenience. selected slides from it are included herein without alteration). As readers will recall, WLT requires presence of collectively oscillating surface plasmon electrons (SPs - or their dynamical equivalents) on substrates capable of supporting many-body surface ‘patches’ of protons on their surfaces and on which the Born-Oppenheimer approximation breaks down which enables creation of nuclear-strength local electric fields. Since no metals were present inside the apparatus at beginning of the 1994 experiments, there was theoretical challenge to explain exactly how WLT’s conditions for LENRs were fulfilled therein. With benefit of new knowledge unknown to the researchers back in 1994, namely that copious quantities of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and Graphene are formed during carbon-arc electrode discharges in water, in 2009 we hypothesized that surface plasmons exist on CNTs and graphene. As of 2009, there was already strong published experimental evidence for SPs on CNTs, however direct experimental evidence for controllable SPs on Graphene was still lacking. Well, thanks to papers just published in 2012 by two independent teams in Nature, that remaining issue has been decisively clarified: researchers have now directly resolved gate-tunable, propagating surface plasmons in real space on Graphene
  • Herein, along with other recent discoveries, we will cite the Nature papers and discuss implications for LENRs on carbonaceous substrates

以上

2012年7月8日日曜日

National Instruments社が常温核融合研究へ強力な支援

ロッシ氏のE-Catの改良に大きな貢献をしたと伝えられるNational Instruments社がいよいよ常温核融合研究へ強力な支援を行なっている事を公に表明し始めました。
NIWeekに高橋亮人博士のLENR講演登場」でお伝えしたNIWeekには、常温核融合関連の講演が更に2件追加されています。講演は以下のWebページで検索できます。
https://secure.niweek.com/2012/scheduler/catalog.do

一つ目は、「常温核融合技術の商用化」と題した講演で、Brillouin Energy社のRobert Godes社長が喋ります。

TS10486
Technical Session
8/8/12 (Wednesday 8th) 4:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Ballroom E
Title: Commercialization of LENR Technology
Length: 30 Minute
Technical Level: Introductory
Abstract: In the quest for alternative energy, researchers have tried to understand the intense heat release of Pd-D or Ni-H reactions. By understanding the physics behind this lower energy nuclear reaction (LENR) phenomenon, researchers can control the reaction. Discover how Brillouin Energy Corporation has demonstrated control over the reaction, who the early adopters are likely to be, the types of systems that will be commercialized, and the applications these systems will address.
NIWeek Speaker: Robert Godes
President and Chief Technology Officer
Brillouin Energy Corp
もう一つは、驚いたことにキーノート・スピーチで、「代替エネルギー〜過剰熱(常温核融合)〜の探求」という題名です。まだ話者は公表されていません。
TS10500
Technical Session 8/7/12 (Tuesday 7th) 4:45 PM - 5:45 PM
Ballroom E
Title: Keynote: The Quest for Alternative Energy—Anomalous Heat Effect (a.k.a. Cold Fusion)
Length: 1 Hour
Technical Level: Introductory
Abstract: Several labs around the world are trying to replicate the phenomenon known as “cold fusion.” While the term has evoked controversy, many research facilities have observed over 200 instances of intense heat. This demonstrates either an unknown physical event or a need for better measurement and control tools. In both cases, NI can provide the tools to accelerate innovation and scientific discovery. The Big Physics and Science Summit brings together experts to discuss these anomalous heat effects, the status of theoretical research, experimental results, and the prospect of commercializing this technology for daily energy needs.
さらに、E-Cat Worldには、7月2日にイタリアのローマで開かれた「Towards a non-polluting energy revolution(無公害エネルギー革命に向けて)」と題された常温核融合関連の会議で、NI社のStefano Concezzi氏が語った内容が紹介されました。氏は、NI社の「Science and Big Physics Segment」のディレクターです。 

それによると、NI社は既に以下のような研究組織とコラボレーションしているとのこと。日本の神戸大学と大阪大学の名前もあります。NI社がこのような広範囲の協調関係を築きつつあるのは驚きです。今後の展開が楽しみになってきました。

Kim (hope the spelling is right), Purdue University – mathematical model – software applications – to be presented in august
Hagelstein, MIT mathematical model – software applications (different theory)
Los alamos national lab
University of Missouri
University of Bologna, Levi – he mentioned a sponsorship for a lab of the physics department. so here we go beyond a simple collaboration. he also spoke about Levi as the “heir” of Focardi (I guess this is also a way to keep in touch with Rossi)
ENEA
INFN Frascati (Celani)
Kobe University
Osaka University

Texas University, Austin
Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)
Stanford Research Institute
Naval Research Laboratories
以上