[ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power

[spike]

...
From: Giovanni Santostasi [mailto:gsantostasi at gmail.com] 
...
Subject: Re: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency
of wind power

>...So what do you think about this stuff, is too good to be true?

I am a hard core optimist.  I see it not so much too good to be true. Rather
too false to be true.

>...Is this all bogus?

I think so.  Read on:

>http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-italian-scientists-cold-fusion-video.ht
ml

>...Giovanni

...
 Comment that raises immediate suspicion:

"...Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced
that they developed a cold fusion device capable of producing 12,400 W of
heat power with an input of just 400 W..."

Hmmm.  This version of the experimental description has enough numbers in it
for us to evaluate.  But for now, read on.

"...Rossi and Focardi say that, when the atomic nuclei of nickel and
hydrogen are fused in their reactor, the reaction produces copper and a
large amount of energy..."

No!  You guys make me work so hard to remember my college physics!  But it's
OK, I enjoyed it in my misspent youth, now it's fun to relearn it.

Let us ignore the nucleon energy argument for the moment, since we are
talking weird physics here.

If I am reading my chart correctly (do feel free to refute, you won't hurt
my feelings {8-]) there are only four isotopes of nickel that could form
copper by proton absorption (the others are by beta decay, which I refuted
last week): 51Ni, 52Ni, 53Ni, and 54Ni.  When these undergo proton
absorption (which is what these guys are claiming) you get 52Cu, 53Cu, 54Cu
and 55Cu, respectively.  Otherwise you would see betas like crazy, and they
don't say that, and if there were beta decays, the experiment wouldn't do
this anyways.

Note these guys are specifically claiming copper from nickel by proton
absorption, rather than by beta decay of any kind.

The respective half lives of those last three copper isotopes are less than
300 nanoseconds, 75 nanoseconds, 40 milliseconds.  Regarding 52Cu, no one is
claiming to know the halflife of that stuff, but it doesn't matter because
there isn't enough 51Ni to worry about in any case.

Out of all this, I thought of a hell of a clever physics joke we could play
on the undergrads on April 1.  We could get some ordinary stable copper (63
and 65), in granular form, flash plate it with nickel (nickel will
electroplate directly onto a chemically excited copper surface, I can show
you how.)  Then we give it to the undergrads, who fail to notice it's
density is very slightly higher than it should be.  They couldn't be faulted
for that, the density is very nearly identical for those two, right around
8.9 g/cm^3.  In granular form, they would never notice, no one would.  Then
we give them this setup with a phony input but which chemically dissolves
the nickel, making it look like they have created copper.  Since the
resulting copper is stable with no observed beta decay, they would go to the
chalk board and theorize some previously-unknown proton absorption.  The
electroplating process requires energy input: it comes back out when the
nickel flash coating dissolves, heating the water.  Undergrads go crazy, we
laugh our asses off.  That would be a kick, we could have such fun!

Oh wait.  Do you suppose the undergrads thought of this trick, and slipped
some nickel plated copper into the lab (labeled pure nickel) when the
professors weren't looking?

spike