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[Descan]

PTSpehs

[i2amroy]

I eriously doubt this can work. It's feels like too much pseudoscience to hope for it to work.

Another relevant xkcd:

[Il Palazzo]

I value my meagre supplies of excitement too much to invest them in 'discoveries' that hadn't been published in reputable journals and validated.

[ChairmanPoo]

Isn't this old news? I recall reading about something like this a year ago or so. It was way overhyped. Something about the mass needed for Alcubierre drives being less than the one guessed before *if* exotic matter was employed, but still far larger than it would be practical. Or somesuch.

[Reelya]

This is a separate story altogether. This is not an alcubierre drive.

This story is that apparently you can juice up your home microwave to make something that does the same thing as an alcubierre drive.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Reelya]

They can hook this up to Rossi's E-Cat Cold Fusion device for the power source. This will have the added benefit that the water for the E-Cat can be heated up in the microwave section.

[miauw62]

We have a very nice solar mass available and you want to pollute the fragile environment of Jupiter?

Probably much harder to dump stuff into the sun, though.
that said, space is pretty big and we might be able to get away by just building giant garbage dumps in space.

[wierd]

Futurisitic Sitcom?

(That's really REALLY bad?)

[Frumple]

Probably much harder to dump stuff into the sun, though.
that said, space is pretty big and we might be able to get away by just building giant garbage dumps in space.

Space Hulk 2150, baby. Them tyranids aren't going to breed themselves!

[TempAcc]

:v we could build mass drivers and just launch everything into jupiter's orbit or something, not like we have working mass driver prototypes yet.

Anyway, in regards to the e-cat, has anyone actualy managed to prove it to be a hoax or something? Not that I have any trust on Rossi, but the latest attempt to replicate the effect seemed to get a reactor to heat up to 1000 Celcius and then crack apart.

EDIT: Here's the article where I found the video, if anyone's curious: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-02/06/cold-fusion-reactor

[wierd]

IIRC, the premise behind the ecat is nonsense.  The mechanism proposed is just not plausible-- We would have a LOT more copper on earth if this kind of thing was possible and easy to do. (Nickel constitutes a fair percentage of the earth's core, and would have been very abundant in the early solar system, along with the water that was delivered to the earth. Conditions would have been "favorable" for this kind of fusion, if it were really possible, in the early history of the earth-- meaning a significant amount of copper should have been generated. So-- where's all that copper at?)

[forsaken1111]

ptw in preparation for eventual disappointment

[Eagleon]

IIRC, the premise behind the ecat is nonsense.  The mechanism proposed is just not plausible-- We would have a LOT more copper on earth if this kind of thing was possible and easy to do. (Nickel constitutes a fair percentage of the earth's core, and would have been very abundant in the early solar system, along with the water that was delivered to the earth. Conditions would have been "favorable" for this kind of fusion, if it were really possible, in the early history of the earth-- meaning a significant amount of copper should have been generated. So-- where's all that copper at?)

It's usually the case that geophysics bases its measurements on the reactions that we know occur, so our estimates may be off somewhat. We can't exactly dip into the mantle to study it, we have to base our guesses on its composition on volcanic events (which don't represent the whole mantle) and sonar/seismic density studies. This even suggests a certain amount of hoarding away from the crust. I'm not saying it's not bunk, I'm saying using geophysics as a reason probably isn't the best bet because of how often it gets overturned every time we discover a new physical process that could affect it.

[TempAcc]

The ecat has also had some surprisingly positive peer reviews in recent years too, and from very credible sources like the University of Uppsala, altough those series of experiments got questioned because Rossi actualy examined the samples so critics said (rightfuly so) that he might have tampered with the experiment. Then there's Parkhomov's independent experiment who said that he managed to replicate the ecat and give out a similar, though slightly inferior output of energy.
Now the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project, in an attempt to replicate it, has caused a small reactor to heat up to +1000 degrees celcius and cause it to crack and leak, in a supposed runaway reaction, which confirm's Rossi's claim that the hardest part about getting his prototype to work was preventing runaway reactions.

Does this prove cold fusion works? Not really, not yet at least, since the Martin Fleischmann Memorial Project is still doing experiments, but maybe there's more to Rossi's prototype then we thought.

Also, this combined with possible magnetron-driven engines could open up some interesting possibilities, even if the Alcubierre drive is not a possibility yet. But yea, peer review, valuable science journals, etc. Not saying we are on the  verge of a revolution in physics and energy production, but the mere fact that there's no concrete proof that we aren't is reason enough to keep an eye on things.