505 replies to this topic

[Lazarus Long]

At the beginning of this thread, if someone mentioned that in 2008 the price of oil would hit $148 a barrel some would have said bullocks, other would have said "we're screwed".

While I do not appreciate the hyperbole of the end timers either I do think a little perspective is called for Mind. We brought the price of oil down in essence by trashing the global economy and are now threatened with a global depression.

Oil prices hit their limits because they acted like the straw that broke the camel's back when combined with the irrational investment of large percentages of global market capital in instruments like the mortgage backed securities (derivatives not the mortgages themselves), that then combined with the rapidly increasing inflation rate caused by the runaway oil price rise. This exposed and in fact helped force the exploitation of the vulnerability when calls for coverage of debt and margins began to occur.

I have long been on record saying that fundamental demand only supported about an $80 dollar a barrel oil (during the peak of the peak oil fervor) and I predicted this crash in prices well in advance of the markets. In fact if people look they will find I am on record saying this very thing here at imminst.

The recession and now possible GLOBAL depression are shrinking market demand for oil dramatically and the new price support level is closer to $60 a barrel based on current and near term forecast demand. It took economic calamity to reduce consumption even when the option to do so for consumers was always there when they whined about high prices. A rational and responsible consumer that exercised moderate consumption could have prevented the runaway price spike of oil, just as they could have prevented the crash and can still mitigate the worst effects of Peak Oil, but what we are now seeing IS one of the impacts of Peak Oil.

Ironically one of the benefits of hitting the peak and suffering the economic downturn may be that the climate impact of fossil fuel consumption has actually begun to drop even below Kyoto protocols. Talk about doing the the right thing for the wrong reasons.

I know we do not agree on that either, but now we can both claim it wasn't intentional, it just happened that way.

Yep estimates for consumption are dramatically down but why does this still look like the 70's all over again?

Could it be that many of the economic aspects, which were impacted by domestic peak oil production in the 70's are now being repeated on a global scale? Who'd a thunk it?

[Mind]

Could it be that many of the economic aspects, which were impacted by domestic peak oil production in the 70's are now being repeated on a global scale?

As long as we don't get price controls like back in the 70s, things should be fine.

As far as adapting, I did the same thing when prices rose. I started riding a bike to work, turned the heat down in the house, etc... A lot of people I ran into just whined and wanted to sue the oil companies - talk about compounding an already bad situation.

At the Singularity Summit this year, Kurweil said that solar power production is now subject to Moores law and that in 10 years we could produce all the world's energy needs from solar. Unfortunately, solar power is a bubble as well and we will have to go through a "shakeout" fairly soon. Some in the industry say 80% of the current solar companies will go bankrupt in the next 2 years. After that, things should be pretty rosy, but I think Kurzweil is a bit optimistic.

[Lazarus Long]

As long as we don't get price controls like back in the 70s, things should be fine.

I should hope we have learned a lot this time from both the mistakes, as well as the successes of the past. Though considering the cycle of denial and then exploitative fear mongering that already took place with respect to peak oil I must say I wonder if we have.

As far as adapting, I did the same thing when prices rose. I started riding a bike to work, turned the heat down in the house, etc... A lot of people I ran into just whined and wanted to sue the oil companies - talk about compounding an already bad situation.

Here we are certainly in basic agreement. I consider suing the oil companies a profound waste of time and money except for the lawyers that is, who butter their bread on this stuff. However, I think the oil companies should be stripped of the numerous subsidies they still receive in a counter productive manner and I do think some (not all) of that stripped subsidy money should be redirected toward the alternative energy industry, creating not just new technology but new jobs in the process.

At the Singularity Summit this year, Kurweil said that solar power production is now subject to Moores law and that in 10 years we could produce all the world's energy needs from solar. Unfortunately, solar power is a bubble as well and we will have to go through a "shakeout" fairly soon. Some in the industry say 80% of the current solar companies will go bankrupt in the next 2 years. After that, things should be pretty rosy, but I think Kurzweil is a bit optimistic.

There is some reason for hope in this matter but the economy is still the ultimate engine of creativity and when some of the good corporate models get thrown out with the bad it slows down progress. However there are new technologies already on paper. I hope they can survive this period of restricted investment in new ideas and receive the attention they deserve.

Nevertheless this is again like when some of us paid too much for an old XT machine. If all we had done was wait till all the tech came down in price the R&D capital and incentive to compete would not have been there to drive Moore's Law into reality. That is why I didn't wait to buy Solar Cells even though I can only hope they do become obsolete relatively soon.

But we can hope there is something to say for technological breakthrough's like this.

Portable power: Tiny solar cells show promise

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Researchers have developed some of the tiniest solar cells ever made and said on Thursday the organic material could potentially be painted on to surfaces. So far, they have managed to pull 11 volts of electricity from a small array of the cells, which are each just a quarter of the size of a grain of white rice, said Xiaomei Jiang of the University of South Florida, who led the research.

"They could be sprayed on any surface that is exposed to sunlight -- a uniform, a car, a house," Jiang said in a telephone interview.

"Because it is in a solution, you can design a special spray gun where you can control the size and thickness. You could produce a paste and brush it on," she said.

Eventually, Jiang envisions the solar cells being used as a coating on a variety of surfaces, including clothing. They might generate energy to power small electronic devices or charge a cell phone, for example.

Solar cells, which convert energy from the sun into electricity, are in increasing demand amid unstable gas prices and worries over global warming. Most conventional solar cells are made up of silicon wafers, a brittle substance that limits where they can be placed.

Many teams of scientists are working on different ways to make solar cells more flexible in the hopes of taking better advantage of energy from the sun. The tiny cells from Jiang's lab are made from an organic polymer that has the same electrical properties of silicon wafers but can be dissolved and applied to flexible materials.

"The main components are carbon and hydrogen -- materials that are present in nature and are environmentally friendly," Jiang said.

In research published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Jiang and colleagues showed an array of 20 of these cells could generate 7.8 volts of electricity, about half the power needed to run a microscopic sensor for detecting dangerous chemicals and toxins. (excerpt)

It is a bad article about a good idea and I would love to read the source study because they do not mention anywhere what the actual power production (wattage) is, they only focus on voltage in an appeal to popular ignorance.

Also back on the issue of the Solar Industry shake out, the flip side of that is that many very good stocks are beaten down at the moment and offer a tremendous buying opportunity, especially considering that Obama and the rest of the industrial world are promising to redirect capital investment over the next few years into that sector.

[Mind]

especially considering that Obama and the rest of the industrial world are promising to redirect capital investment over the next few years into that sector.

Sounds good on paper, but I am suspicious about the government "redirecting" resources and picking the winners. See the billions that continue to go into the grain ethanol biz for example. Under some conditions the EROI of grain ethanol is a little over 1, but that money could be going into solar, wind, nuclear, or even biodiesel (which has a much better EROI). It is an example of how government money does not usually end up in the most useful areas but rather into the hands of those most politically connected.

[Lazarus Long]

Part of the result of the ethanol debacle is the because of Reagan economic policy and Bush I and Clinton economic politics. This was another example of one of Carter's creations that mutated into something totally different under subsequent administrations.

I agree that politicians have really screwed the pooch on this issue, however ethanol is not to blame but the incredible power of the farm and corn lobby should be forced to take some of that ire, not just government. Monsanto has invested big bucks in keeping the subsidies flowing to ONLY corn and soybeans, when many smaller companies and academic based alternative approaches were begging for research money into converting things like pond scum and sewage into fuel. Guess whose grants were approved and whose weren't.

[VictorBjoerk]

Tar sand are likely a solution...

[Mind]

Dammit, I tried not to bring politics into the grain ethanol discussion, but just a reminder, when Democrats took control of congress in 2006 they tripped over each other in their rush to approve more grain ethanol subsidies, and there is yet no sign they are going to end such subsidies.

Tar sand are likely a solution...

Correct, tar sands could provide for a lot of our needs and would help out if there was a sudden crash in normal production, however I would like to see cleaner energy sources developed.

[Lazarus Long]

Dammit, I tried not to bring politics into the grain ethanol discussion, but when Democrats took control of congress in 2006 they tripped over each other in their rush to approve more grain ethanol subsidies, and there is yet no sign they are going to end such subsidies.

Calm down Mind. I included Clinton and the Dem's on my evil villain list already, sorry I didn't bring the issue far enough to the present for you. However you must realize in the larger scheme of things this is all chump change and yes, it is badly spent money both in principle and impact. The problem is that no one can discuss subsidies and NOT introduce politics.

The real question is when are we going to return to a proper form of checks and balances (if we ever had them) when one party helps keep the other honest instead of just trying to steal the ball and run their own corrupt game plan on it? Both parties are guilty and there is little doubt about it, on that part we agree, but the big problems didn't just begin in 2006.

It certainly did start when Dem's turned their backs on Carter's plan in the late 70's when the Dem's bought into the compromise of making ethanol mandatory for a lead in gasoline substitute but allowed only the ethanol produced from US sources, and not globally competitive Brazilian ethanol for example. Then Reagan jumped on the subsidy making it his one of his favorite pork barrel rewards he fed agribusiness and the farm states with and immediately began cutting the federal funding portion for new research.

[Mind]

Then the Dem's bought into the compromise of making ethanol mandatory for a lead in gasoline substitute but allowed only the ethanol produced from US sources, and not globally competitive Brazilian ethanol for example.

I am glad you pointed that out.

Being a supporter of free markets as a way to a more peaceful and collaborative future for everyone, the ban on Brazilian ethanol is a burr in my side. There are things that the U.S. does well and there are crops that can be produced efficiently here, but grain ethanol is not one of them. Brazil has a much better set-up with sugar cane.

[Zenob]

The price of oil over the summer had almost nothing to do with supply and demand. It was a speculation induced asset bubble. GS had a price target of $147 I believe on oil and any price target from GS is practically a self fullfilling prophecy because so many people invest/trade off their research. The simply fact is that before the bubble oil was trading around 20 bucks a barrel. It's simply impossible for global demand to increase by a factor of 7 in a year. There's no way. Just watch though, they've pumped trillions into the system and when that money breaks loose it'll HAVE to go somewhere and commodities will be a likely target. we could see oil go shooting right back up along with ag stocks, metals, etc. Everybody is screaming deflation right now but they are overlooking the fact that most of the asset sell offs have been the result of hedge funds getting hit with margin calls/redemptions and getting forced into selling their positions. The prices aren't going down because they WANTED to sell all those commodity stocks, it's because they were forced to.

[Lazarus Long]

The price of oil over the summer had almost nothing to do with supply and demand. It was a speculation induced asset bubble. GS had a price target of $147 I believe on oil and any price target from GS is practically a self fullfilling prophecy because so many people invest/trade off their research.

The simply fact is that before the bubble oil was trading around 20 bucks a barrel. It's simply impossible for global demand to increase by a factor of 7 in a year

For the record it has really NOT traded at or below $25 a barrel since before 9-11 as the history of oil pricing above will attest to. After 9-11 even Bush used the Strategic Reserve to stabilize oil pricing and for a year it remained at around $25 a barrel but began an inexorable climb that actually soon had much more to do with the aftermath of Katrina.

While you won't receive any argument from me that oil prices are not about a free market, generally speaking prior to the wild speculation based on fear mongering peak oil this last summer the price probably had legitimate market supports below $45-$50 a barrel and a cap at about $80 to $85. Actual supply has been falling off well behind rapidly increasing demand from India and China, not to mention a wide swath of the emerging technologies.

There's no way. Just watch though, they've pumped trillions into the system and when that money breaks loose it'll HAVE to go somewhere and commodities will be a likely target.

Actually as I said elsewhere, commodities do not move as fast, nor in as predictive a manner as stocks. The fact of the matter is that commodities are more likely to flatten, not fatten as they find a new floor. As the economy grows and specific sectors demonstrate new supply & demand relationship to exploit there will inevitably be movement back up but a lot of other things will happen between now and then.

When that money breaks loose there are a lot of better places for it to go, starting with retooling the economy and rebuilding the construction sector that underpins much of the economic growth that feeds other sectors. You can expect a far larger share of that money to go back into stocks, and even bonds faster than the percentage that will return to the COMEX for the immediate future. Buyers on the COMEX will more likely return to being largely industrial and institutional users of items.

Everybody is screaming deflation right now but they are overlooking the fact that most of the asset sell offs have been the result of hedge funds getting hit with margin calls/redemptions and getting forced into selling their positions. The prices aren't going down because they WANTED to sell all those commodity stocks, it's because they were forced to.

BTW you are also forgetting Xenob that there was not a winner for every loser in this last go around. A considerable amount of wealth was on paper (401 K's, pension funds, mutual funds etc) and went up in smoke. You are correct that a lot of wealth was forced in the the flames and was also the result of wild speculation, but I think I said the same thing too. On that score we are in basic agreement, what we do not agree on is what will happen now. Also not all these bad habits are suddenly a thing of the past, including knee jerk over regulation in the wrong way and under regulation of the sectors that really need it too.

The lack of a free market dynamic is a factor that deserves its own thread IMHO because truly it is a myth to assert oil pricing is really about free market demand. It is also ignorant to deny it has a critical security value to all industrial nations and central banks as well.

[Mind]

Peak Oil talk did drive up the price last summer. It played a part. Many people think we hit a peak of 85 million BPD during the 2006-2007 time frame. Probably correct. However, considering that OPEC has cut production twice since the peak ($148 per barrel in July) and the price is still falling ($43 today), makes me think we are not going back to the stone age anytime soon, as was predicted by so many peak oil theorists. That is unless, OPEC is lying, and their cuts in production are actually oil fields running dry. Let us assume they are telling the truth. Then there should be quite a bit of excess supply available when economies start growing again (which could be a long, long time...a decade?). Plus we will have developed much more alternative energy capacity by then. Plus society should be running much more efficiently as a whole by then. Unless a couple major oil fields go dry in the next year or two, I don't think we have to worry about heading back to the stone age.

If a couple major oil fields do go dry (or terrorists disrupt the flow of oil), in the next year or two, the U.S. in particular will be in a world of hurt. Not only is the U.S. infrastructure in bad shape, the country relies mostly on oil imports, AND the EPA recently blocked the building of any new coal power plants (gotta battle global warming ya know). This confluence of external disruption and internal blindness as to the power needs of the country would be tough to deal with.

The new administration and congress should be working on decentralized power generation (as Laz has promoted) instead of huge new cross-country power projects. Not gonna happen.

[Lazarus Long]

The only problem is that in order to drop the price oil the $100, has appeared to require the largest single reversal of the entire world's economy since arguably the last Great Depression.

The global economy is still in a free-fall shrinkage act. We still don't know where that landing will be. The upside is that as factory after factory has been closing and laying off hundreds of thousands of workers worldwide, the demand for oil has fallen off in record proportion.

BTW, ironically green house gas production has also fallen to possible levels that meet the Kyoto Protocols even though 2007 levels were a record increase of 1.5%.

The steel industry announced it is closing down mills and laying off workers by the thousands, the auto industry had already shut down factories, actual power consumption rates have fallen off dramatically as offices, business, and factories have closed. There is a ripple effect moving now through the entire world's economy as secondary suppliers are shutting down and laying off workers, restaurants, and other support services sectors are closing and the vehicles all these people were driving are staying home.

These ripple growing not diminishing and the OPEC nations are losing the ability to keep a lid on production as incomes they made themselves dependent on when times were fat for them go lean fast. It is interesting to watch.

Oh and I agree Mind about decentralized power not being high on the list of programs the Obama Administration will foster but I am familiar with the fact that it is at least on their table.

[Mind]

I am more worried about self-inflicted energy shortages now than the physical limits that have been debated in this thread. There seems to be enough oil and fossil fuel in general to operate industrial society for quite a few decades, however political supply disruptions are still a possibility. Consider:

-The EPA has recently blocked the building of any new coal power plants in the U.S.
-No new nuclear power plants have been built in the last 3 decades.
-No new oil refineries have been built in a couple decades and it is unlikely any will be soon.
-Oil drilling in fruitful areas has effectively been blocked.
-U.S. energy infrastructure is in poor shape overall.
-Canadian oil sand development is on hold due to environmental concerns
-The new presidential Administration is likely to curb fossil fuel usage through new taxes or international agreement (recently having a highly secretive meeting with Al Gore - who has sided with the worst case AGW scenarios - and is expected to appoint Carol Browner to the EPA)

On the plus side, natural gas production has increased. Wind and solar generation is also increasing.

What I am worried about is that the new administration does not fully comprehend how much energy it takes to run the U.S. and how fragile the energy situation is (how susceptible it is to disruption). I am a huge promoter of alternative energy but I wouldn't want to put a country at risk by severely limiting fossil fuels before alternative capacity is in place. I am much more worried about what a desperate population facing blackouts and food shortages would do than what might happen 100 years from now because of AGW.

[Mind]

Just an update as of February. March Nymex crude contract closed at 37 and change on Friday. OPEC keeps cutting production yet the price is still low. It would still seem as if there is a lot of spare capacity. That is, if OPEC is telling the truth. I was wondering what the Peak Oil theorists think about it. Is OPEC lying? Are they masking the fact that they are running out of oil by announcing "cuts" in production during this economic downturn? According to the original theory the oil was supposed to start running out in the 1990s (then 2005, 2007, and for sure in 2008). If Peak Oil theorists are even close to being correct, then oil should be running out pretty soon.

Edited by Mind, 14 February 2009 - 05:52 PM.

[castrensis]

Just an update as of February. March Nymex crude contract closed at 37 and change on Friday. OPEC keeps cutting production yet the price is still low. It would still seem as if there is a lot of spare capacity. That is, if OPEC is telling the truth. I was wondering what the Peak Oil theorists think about it. Is OPEC lying? Are they masking the fact that they are running out of oil by announcing "cuts" in production during this economic downturn? According to the original theory the oil was supposed to start running out in the 1990s (then 2005, 2007, and for sure in 2008). If Peak Oil theorists are even close to being correct, then oil should be running out pretty soon.

According to this graph Hubbert's original estimate for oil production peak is sometime after the year 2000. The important point to take away from Hubbert's peak is not that at the peak we run out of cheap, energy-dense fossil fuels, but that we begin a relentless decline of oil "production" - more accurately, extraction. IIRC, Hubbert's original estimate for the peak of US oil was actually a few years earlier than the actual peak due to decreased demand secondary to economic troubles & I suppose a world-wide economic recession in conjunction with a protracted war in the largest oil producing countries could push the peak of extraction past the original estimates. Of course, the relentless decline of oil supplies past our peak of extraction, or the peak itself, could be sped up due to the increasing industrialization of countries whose oil consumption was previously negligible. This enlarged market for fossil fuels also means that although it looks like world oil production will be on similar levels in 2050 as in 1950 these resources will be spread more thinly than they were in 1950 which largely featured US & European (Russian?) consumption.

I don't think pinpointing a precise date of peak oil extraction is all that important &, ultimately, will probably only be determined in retrospect. However, the reasoning behind postulating a peak & relentless decline of oil extraction is sound. Oil is a finite resource, the result of hundreds of millions of years of ripening resources deposited during a narrow window of time in the very distant past. OPEC is almost certainly fabricating their "proven reserves", primarily because the volume of oil they are able to extract is based upon their proven reserves & nearly every OPEC member's reserves have either remained the same or increased in the past several decades, a phenomenon that is impossible based upon geological facts.

Most worrisome is the massive global population that depends on industrialized agriculture that relies on cheap energy-dense fossil fuels, maintaining an artificially high carrying capacity of the planet, a large proportion of which will almost certainly perish if we don't invest in & implement sustainable energy resources. The modern metropolis will quickly lose coherence without daily truckloads of resources & cheap energy piped in; the same story will play out in hospitals & suburbs that require gobs of resources & energy. I don't see nearly enough money & energy devoted to development of sustainable energy resources that could replace fossil fuels & some folks think that even with a multi-modal approach we won't be able to approximate the amount of energy derived from energy-dense fossil fuels.

It's a frightening picture of the future; here's hoping human ingenuity will engineer solutions before the marvels of modernity are threatened.

[valkyrie_ice]

Most worrisome is the massive global population that depends on industrialized agriculture that relies on cheap energy-dense fossil fuels, maintaining an artificially high carrying capacity of the planet, a large proportion of which will almost certainly perish if we don't invest in & implement sustainable energy resources. The modern metropolis will quickly lose coherence without daily truckloads of resources & cheap energy piped in; the same story will play out in hospitals & suburbs that require gobs of resources & energy. I don't see nearly enough money & energy devoted to development of sustainable energy resources that could replace fossil fuels & some folks think that even with a multi-modal approach we won't be able to approximate the amount of energy derived from energy-dense fossil fuels.

It's a frightening picture of the future; here's hoping human ingenuity will engineer solutions before the marvels of modernity are threatened.

http://www.blackligh...FINAL081209.htm

Cheap, renewable power from hydrogen. Verified from an independent University lab. Bought by several different power companies. Can be retrofitted into existing oil/coal/gas powerplants, can be scaled from car engine sized to city power plant.

The solution exists it seems. Yet because it is "impossible" according to current physics, despite verification by independent scientists not in the employ of the company, no one seems to want to talk about it...

Odd, I was always taught EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE trumped THEORY in science... Isn't the theory supposed to be changed when evidence it is wrong is found?

Of course it might be fake, but wouldn't it be best to actually do the lab work to PROVE it's a fake before simply dismissing it? Rowan University did, and found it to not be fake, so why hasn't anyone else? This should be the biggest news since Oil was found in Texas, and yet...

[niner]

This should be the biggest news since Oil was found in Texas, and yet...

I think that confirmation from other labs is needed. The Rowan group is too close to BLP, and it's only one lab. There's a history of skeptical scientists going into BLP's lab and coming out convinced. That too is impressive, but it's not the same as replication. This is the kind of thing where no one wants to admit that it's real at first, but eventually there will be a trickle of confirmations that will become a crescendo. Some major experimentalists or theoreticians will come out publicly that they think it's real, and suddenly it will catch fire. If there were just some obvious way to play this in order to make money off of it. BLP is privately held; there's no stock that I'm aware of. I suppose that you could short coal companies. You could also just be generally long in equities, particularly companies that have a large power cost, like aluminum smelters. I would think that once the idea sinks in, there would be a pretty good general pop in the market. It would probably pull back when it turns out that commercialization is still pretty far away. If they could ramp the engineering up quickly and create robust commercial power generation units, that would throw quite a monkey wrench into Alternative Energy stocks. Why spend 50 grand for a solar power system if you could do a hydrino-based home cogeneration plant for 15 grand, and get space heating in the bargain?

[Blue]

Well, I cannot understand the mathematics or physics involved, and thus not really if the experiments prove something or not. So I must rely on the view of other researchers. According to Wikipedia (sigh!) "In 2007, Antonio Di Castro showed that the states below the ground state, as described in Mills' theory, are incompatible with the Schrödinger, Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations." and "Mills' mathematical model for the bound electron treats the electron not as a point nor as a probability wave, but as a dynamic two-dimensional spherical shell surrounding the nucleus".
http://en.wikipedia....lacklight_Power

I do not know what could be equivalent in biology but at would at least be like claiming that DNA is not a carrier of genetic information or that the brain is not involved in cognition. Sure, experiments triumph theory, but extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.

From what I can read what the Rowan researchers have found is only an uexplained "quick burst of intense heat".
http://www.nytimes.c...-cla-99377.html

A quick burst of energy apparently not explained by previous theories is interesting but not world-shaking. Several possiblities:
1. It is explained by previous fundamental theory. For example, the experiment uses up some form of well-known chemical energy in material used but it was previously not known that this material contained such energy.
2. It is not explained by previous fundamental theory but only a minor or relatively minor modification of old theory is necessary or a new theory is added to old ones. Happens all the time in science.
For example, see:
http://en.wikipedia....eutrino_problem
3. It is not explained by previous fundamental theory or modifications of the old theory. A completely new fundamental theory is required. Like replacing Newton and Maxwell physics with Einstein and quantum mechanics physics. It happens, but very rarely.

Now a further claim is that the Rown researchers have certified that commercial production is possible. This is not correct from how I understand it. They have only found a somewhat interesting unexplained brief burst of heat. "For a commercializable process, there would need to be a steady output. Mills explains that by saying he has purposefully kept knowledge of the methods to loop the reaction within the company, so that his own researchers can remain a step ahead in their work on the 50KW reactor that the company earlier announced."
http://www.nytimes.c...-cla-99377.html

So there is no independent evidence that large scale energy production is possible.

Edited by Blue, 17 September 2009 - 04:33 PM.

[Mind]

Just an update as of February. March Nymex crude contract closed at 37 and change on Friday. OPEC keeps cutting production yet the price is still low. It would still seem as if there is a lot of spare capacity. That is, if OPEC is telling the truth. I was wondering what the Peak Oil theorists think about it. Is OPEC lying? Are they masking the fact that they are running out of oil by announcing "cuts" in production during this economic downturn? According to the original theory the oil was supposed to start running out in the 1990s (then 2005, 2007, and for sure in 2008). If Peak Oil theorists are even close to being correct, then oil should be running out pretty soon.

According to this graph Hubbert's original estimate for oil production peak is sometime after the year 2000. The important point to take away from Hubbert's peak is not that at the peak we run out of cheap, energy-dense fossil fuels, but that we begin a relentless decline of oil "production" - more accurately, extraction. IIRC, Hubbert's original estimate for the peak of US oil was actually a few years earlier than the actual peak due to decreased demand secondary to economic troubles & I suppose a world-wide economic recession in conjunction with a protracted war in the largest oil producing countries could push the peak of extraction past the original estimates. Of course, the relentless decline of oil supplies past our peak of extraction, or the peak itself, could be sped up due to the increasing industrialization of countries whose oil consumption was previously negligible. This enlarged market for fossil fuels also means that although it looks like world oil production will be on similar levels in 2050 as in 1950 these resources will be spread more thinly than they were in 1950 which largely featured US & European (Russian?) consumption.

I don't think pinpointing a precise date of peak oil extraction is all that important &, ultimately, will probably only be determined in retrospect. However, the reasoning behind postulating a peak & relentless decline of oil extraction is sound. Oil is a finite resource, the result of hundreds of millions of years of ripening resources deposited during a narrow window of time in the very distant past. OPEC is almost certainly fabricating their "proven reserves", primarily because the volume of oil they are able to extract is based upon their proven reserves & nearly every OPEC member's reserves have either remained the same or increased in the past several decades, a phenomenon that is impossible based upon geological facts.

Most worrisome is the massive global population that depends on industrialized agriculture that relies on cheap energy-dense fossil fuels, maintaining an artificially high carrying capacity of the planet, a large proportion of which will almost certainly perish if we don't invest in & implement sustainable energy resources. The modern metropolis will quickly lose coherence without daily truckloads of resources & cheap energy piped in; the same story will play out in hospitals & suburbs that require gobs of resources & energy. I don't see nearly enough money & energy devoted to development of sustainable energy resources that could replace fossil fuels & some folks think that even with a multi-modal approach we won't be able to approximate the amount of energy derived from energy-dense fossil fuels.

It's a frightening picture of the future; here's hoping human ingenuity will engineer solutions before the marvels of modernity are threatened.

I enjoyed reading your analysis.

1. The oil supply is not "finite". The earth has a carbon cycle where plate tectonics drive carbon into the mantle where they become hydrocarbons. This is not coming to an end any time soon as far as I am aware. However, past deposits (into the mantle) may have been much greater than what is happening now which means less oil for the future - could be much less.

2. Our agricultural system is becoming more efficient year-over-year. Production is not directly and exclusively related to hydrocarbon energy input. Genetics and other biotech techniques have boosted production and opened up new areas of the world (arid areas) to production.

3. Worker productivity is also increasing, meaning we get more product per energy input. Is it enough to offset potential future drops in fossil fuel supply - probably not - but it helps.

4. The economics of fossil fuel is dynamic, not static or linear. Rising prices lead to more focus on alternatives, conservation, and innovation. As long as energy exists in a free market, people will respond quickly to price and supply changes.

I still think some price and supply shocks are coming, and they will hit the U.S. particularly hard (as you have pointed out), however I still don't see us (human society as a whole) heading back to the stone age.

[Blue]

The problem with renewables is that the important ones have an irregular output. There are no good way to store large amounts of energy. Nor is possible to efficiently transport energy from areas where there is excess to where there is deficiency. Such as areas lacking sunshine or wind at the moment. These problems *may* be solved in the future.

That still leaves nuclear. Sure, there are problems with safety and waste storage but to think that most of the world's population would rather die, as many hard-core energy peakers believe, than accept these risks is rather unrealistic to say the least. It is possible to replace fossil fuels with electricity in cars as is already increasingly taking place. Regarding nuclear reserves, they will last a long time.
http://www.world-nuc...info/inf75.html
http://www-formal.st...ress/cohen.html

Really long term the solution is likely in space:
http://www.nada.kth....a/dysonFAQ.html

Edited by Blue, 17 September 2009 - 05:39 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

Well, I cannot understand the mathematics or physics involved, and thus not really if the experiments prove something or not. So I must rely on the view of other researchers. According to Wikipedia (sigh!) "In 2007, Antonio Di Castro showed that the states below the ground state, as described in Mills' theory, are incompatible with the Schrödinger, Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations." and "Mills' mathematical model for the bound electron treats the electron not as a point nor as a probability wave, but as a dynamic two-dimensional spherical shell surrounding the nucleus".
http://en.wikipedia....lacklight_Power

I do not know what could be equivalent in biology but at would at least be like claiming that DNA is not a carrier of genetic information or that the brain is not involved in cognition. Sure, experiments triumph theory, but extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.

From what I can read what the Rowan researchers have found is only an uexplained "quick burst of intense heat".
http://www.nytimes.c...-cla-99377.html

A quick burst of energy apparently not explained by previous theories is interesting but not world-shaking. Several possiblities:
1. It is explained by previous fundamental theory. For example, the experiment uses up some form of well-known chemical energy in material used but it was previously not known that this material contained such energy.
2. It is not explained by previous fundamental theory but only a minor or relatively minor modification of old theory is necessary or a new theory is added to old ones. Happens all the time in science.
For example, see:
http://en.wikipedia....eutrino_problem
3. It is not explained by previous fundamental theory or modifications of the old theory. A completely new fundamental theory is required. Like replacing Newton and Maxwell physics with Einstein and quantum mechanics physics. It happens, but very rarely.

Now a further claim is that the Rown researchers have certified that commercial production is possible. This is not correct from how I understand it. They have only found a somewhat interesting unexplained brief burst of heat. "For a commercializable process, there would need to be a steady output. Mills explains that by saying he has purposefully kept knowledge of the methods to loop the reaction within the company, so that his own researchers can remain a step ahead in their work on the 50KW reactor that the company earlier announced."
http://www.nytimes.c...-cla-99377.html

So there is no independent evidence that large scale energy production is possible.

Hummmm. Looks like you went and found all the negative reviews and failed to look at any of the positive ones.

The trouble with Di Castro and others is that all they have done is made mathematical "proofs". Mathematical proofs that just so happen to be unsubstatiated by experimental evidence.

You do understand that when Reality fails to conform to the math that means the math is wrong, right?

I won't argue the physics. I'm unqualified to do that, the big problem I see in physics in general today is that they have allowed the math to become more important that the experimental data. The math may be "beautiful" but no matter how pretty a formula is, when it fails to match experimental data it should be scrapped, whereas it seems that instead many physicists are refusing to even look at the real world data because it contradicts their math. They seem to have forgotten the first goal of science is to study the REAL WORLD.

Even you admit Rowan found excess heat. So why are you dismissing those findings? Mill's theory may be utter crap BUT THEY STILL FOUND EXCESS HEAT. That says more than anything that something is happening that the math is failing to account for. Period.

As for wind and solar, Ultracapitance batteries will solve that issue in the next year or two. they are in underwriters laboratory tests as we speak.

[niner]

They have only found a somewhat interesting unexplained brief burst of heat....
So there is no independent evidence that large scale energy production is possible.

If the Rowan work were all we had to go on, I would agree, but the burst of heat is far from unexplained. It is explained in great detail, and spectroscopic data has been presented that corroborates the explanations. There have been a number of peer reviewed papers published on this by Mills et al., samples of hydrino hydride compounds have been prepared, crystallized, and subjected to diffraction analysis, and software based on Mills' classical theory appears to compute heats of formation of a wide variety of compounds to a shocking degree of accuracy. All of this is like a gigantic elephant in the scientific living room, yet almost no one can see it, or at least they dare not speak its name. It would be funny if it weren't so bizarre. It could all be a colossal hoax, but then we'd have to explain the complete lack of any attempt to extract money from a gullible public, along with the willing input of large sums of money by some very savvy investors with knowledgeable scientists in their employ. The situation is somewhat similar to EEstor, another company that appears poised to radically alter our world.

[Blue]

Well, I cannot understand the mathematics or physics involved, and thus not really if the experiments prove something or not. So I must rely on the view of other researchers. According to Wikipedia (sigh!) "In 2007, Antonio Di Castro showed that the states below the ground state, as described in Mills' theory, are incompatible with the Schrödinger, Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations." and "Mills' mathematical model for the bound electron treats the electron not as a point nor as a probability wave, but as a dynamic two-dimensional spherical shell surrounding the nucleus".
http://en.wikipedia....lacklight_Power

I do not know what could be equivalent in biology but at would at least be like claiming that DNA is not a carrier of genetic information or that the brain is not involved in cognition. Sure, experiments triumph theory, but extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.

From what I can read what the Rowan researchers have found is only an uexplained "quick burst of intense heat".
http://www.nytimes.c...-cla-99377.html

A quick burst of energy apparently not explained by previous theories is interesting but not world-shaking. Several possiblities:
1. It is explained by previous fundamental theory. For example, the experiment uses up some form of well-known chemical energy in material used but it was previously not known that this material contained such energy.
2. It is not explained by previous fundamental theory but only a minor or relatively minor modification of old theory is necessary or a new theory is added to old ones. Happens all the time in science.
For example, see:
http://en.wikipedia....eutrino_problem
3. It is not explained by previous fundamental theory or modifications of the old theory. A completely new fundamental theory is required. Like replacing Newton and Maxwell physics with Einstein and quantum mechanics physics. It happens, but very rarely.

Now a further claim is that the Rown researchers have certified that commercial production is possible. This is not correct from how I understand it. They have only found a somewhat interesting unexplained brief burst of heat. "For a commercializable process, there would need to be a steady output. Mills explains that by saying he has purposefully kept knowledge of the methods to loop the reaction within the company, so that his own researchers can remain a step ahead in their work on the 50KW reactor that the company earlier announced."
http://www.nytimes.c...-cla-99377.html

So there is no independent evidence that large scale energy production is possible.

Hummmm. Looks like you went and found all the negative reviews and failed to look at any of the positive ones.

The trouble with Di Castro and others is that all they have done is made mathematical "proofs". Mathematical proofs that just so happen to be unsubstatiated by experimental evidence.

You do understand that when Reality fails to conform to the math that means the math is wrong, right?

I won't argue the physics. I'm unqualified to do that, the big problem I see in physics in general today is that they have allowed the math to become more important that the experimental data. The math may be "beautiful" but no matter how pretty a formula is, when it fails to match experimental data it should be scrapped, whereas it seems that instead many physicists are refusing to even look at the real world data because it contradicts their math. They seem to have forgotten the first goal of science is to study the REAL WORLD.

Even you admit Rowan found excess heat. So why are you dismissing those findings? Mill's theory may be utter crap BUT THEY STILL FOUND EXCESS HEAT. That says more than anything that something is happening that the math is failing to account for. Period.

As for wind and solar, Ultracapitance batteries will solve that issue in the next year or two. they are in underwriters laboratory tests as we speak.

Yes, there are problems with theoretical physics today since there is much theory proposed, like string theory, that cannot be tested empirically. But this certainly does not apply to basic quantum mechanics or the standard model. It the most well-tested theory in science with its predictions verified as far as is possible to measure in unaccountable experiments and practical applications. If nothing else will convince you, much off the technology we use today is so small-scale that QM effects must be, and are successfully by doing QM theory calculations, taken into account.

Again, yes, the apparently unexplained excess heat is interesting, but this certainly does not mean that Mill's theory is the correct solution. Accepting Mill's theory, since it means abandoning basic QM, would instead mean that we have no explanation for the result of countless QM experiments and why much of current technology works.

[Blue]

More on Mill's theory:

"Unlike quantum theory’s statistical approach, his theory is completely deterministic."

"Mills says he’s published numerous papers describing his theoretical results in peer-reviewed journals. But critics counter by saying that the papers appeared in publications that focus on speculative work and that his theory has deep flaws that he hasn’t addressed."

"And they say there isn’t enough detail to tell whether BlackLight ruled out all possible sources of error in its calorimetry tests, which used temperature measurements of water surrounding the reactor to derive the energy input and output.”Calorimetry experiments are notoriously touchy—it’s easy to fool yourself,” says Joshua Halpern, a professor of chemistry at Howard University, in Washington, D.C. He notes that it was the controversy over calorimeter experiments that undermined claims for cold fusion in the late 1980s. Small variations in temperature data and water flow can wildly distort results.

And even if there’s an energy release, he says, the chemical reactions could be much more complex than what BlackLight accounted for. The heat, he says, may come from other reactions—for instance, between hydrogen gas and oxidized nickel, a highly exothermic process. ”Raney nickel,” he says, ”can ignite after certain hydrogenation reactions.”

William H. Green, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT, says that the BlackLight concept is ”inconsistent with experiment,” because many people have made sodium hydride before without seeing it decompose into sodium and an anomalous form of hydrogen. And then there’s the issue of turning the burst of energy into a continuous process that could be harnessed for power production. BlackLight hasn’t explained in detail how it plans to feed hydrogen and a catalyst into the reactor to keep the process going. ”For a useful large-scale energy process, one cannot be consuming nickel or the sodium compounds, both of which take a lot of energy to produce,” Green says."


http://www.spectrum....er-hot-or-not/0

[Blue]

They have only found a somewhat interesting unexplained brief burst of heat....
So there is no independent evidence that large scale energy production is possible.

If the Rowan work were all we had to go on, I would agree, but the burst of heat is far from unexplained. It is explained in great detail, and spectroscopic data has been presented that corroborates the explanations. There have been a number of peer reviewed papers published on this by Mills et al., samples of hydrino hydride compounds have been prepared, crystallized, and subjected to diffraction analysis, and software based on Mills' classical theory appears to compute heats of formation of a wide variety of compounds to a shocking degree of accuracy. All of this is like a gigantic elephant in the scientific living room, yet almost no one can see it, or at least they dare not speak its name. It would be funny if it weren't so bizarre. It could all be a colossal hoax, but then we'd have to explain the complete lack of any attempt to extract money from a gullible public, along with the willing input of large sums of money by some very savvy investors with knowledgeable scientists in their employ. The situation is somewhat similar to EEstor, another company that appears poised to radically alter our world.

EEstor, from what I can see, is not claiming that basic physics is incorrect. They are similar in that there is no independently verified working prototype but this could be resolved soon:
http://www.allcarsel...eestors-product

Regarding Mills, there is no conspiracy of silence, numerous scientists have looked at and debunked the claims. Theoretical papers published by Mills does not prove that the theory is correct, any more than, for example, a published theoretical paper by a cell biologist arguing that aging is mainly due to arsenic damage proves the theory. Regarding the investors, unless they have a degree in theoretical physics, they cannot really understand the claims. Free energy and variants have an extremely impressive history of duping investors:
http://en.wikipedia....motion_machines

Edited by Blue, 18 September 2009 - 02:54 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

They have only found a somewhat interesting unexplained brief burst of heat....
So there is no independent evidence that large scale energy production is possible.

If the Rowan work were all we had to go on, I would agree, but the burst of heat is far from unexplained. It is explained in great detail, and spectroscopic data has been presented that corroborates the explanations. There have been a number of peer reviewed papers published on this by Mills et al., samples of hydrino hydride compounds have been prepared, crystallized, and subjected to diffraction analysis, and software based on Mills' classical theory appears to compute heats of formation of a wide variety of compounds to a shocking degree of accuracy. All of this is like a gigantic elephant in the scientific living room, yet almost no one can see it, or at least they dare not speak its name. It would be funny if it weren't so bizarre. It could all be a colossal hoax, but then we'd have to explain the complete lack of any attempt to extract money from a gullible public, along with the willing input of large sums of money by some very savvy investors with knowledgeable scientists in their employ. The situation is somewhat similar to EEstor, another company that appears poised to radically alter our world.

EEstor, from what I can see, is not claiming that basic physics is incorrect. They are similar in that there is no independently verified working prototype but this could be resolved soon:
http://www.allcarsel...eestors-product

Regarding Mills, there is no conspiracy of silence, numerous scientists have looked at and debunked the claims. Theoretical papers published by Mills does not prove that the theory is correct, any more than, for example, a published theoretical paper by a cell biologist arguing that aging is mainly due to arsenic damage proves the theory. Regarding the investors, unless they have a degree in theoretical physics, they cannot really understand the claims. Free energy and variants have an extremely impressive history of duping investors:
http://en.wikipedia....motion_machines

And yet again and again you continue to quote papers which have not bothered to examine the physical EVIDENCE, just mill's Theories. I've stated I could care less about Mill THEORIES. The PROCESS works. That alone indicates that research MUST be carried further to discover why.

Dismissing a PHYSICAL PROCESS because of disagreement with the THEORY given to explain it is bad science. If you disagree with the theory EXPLAIN WHY THE PROCESS WORKS with one of your own. But most of those articles you are bringing up, which I have read, all share one common flaw. Not a SINGLE one of them has carried out their own experiments on the PROCESS itself. All that they have done is performed mathematical arguments to prove that the process can't possibly occur despite the fact that it quite obviously does.

Therefore... SOMETHING is happening which is not accounted for in their mathematical models, and therefore something needs to be adjusted in those models. Is Mill's theory the answer? Maybe not, but the fact still remains Physical Reality triumphs over Mathematical models.

And yet again and again you act as if BLP is a con artist. And yet in 20 years Mills has NEVER gone public, his business has operated on the verge of bankruptcy, and has fought accusations of being a con all that time. And yet in that twenty years of continuous research he has not had a single "investor" file fraud charges against him? And now has sold devices to eight power companies, be verified independantly, has made it's research available to anyone willing to do the experimental work and verify it, and kept exactly one secret, how to loop the process into a useful power system. I can think of simple high speed cartridge exchange system that would keep the process in continuous operation and I'm not even an engineer.

So basically your entire argument comes down to "Ignore the facts, protect the status quo, ridicule anyone who says the status quo might be in error."

Further research is called for to investigate a Physical Phenomenon. And rather than dealing with the Physical Reality that there is something occurring, all most of these "debunkers" are doing is putting their fingers in their ears going "I don't want to hear it, it doesn't fit into my pretty little formulas."


oh, and two little additions. One, how does a machine which requires fuel come to be considered a "perpetual motion machine"?

And two, look up the Original form of Maxwell's Equations as originally published. All 20 of them, using quadrion equations which the mathematicians found "too hard" to work with, and so forced them into a simplified form, which is all that is taught in school these days as "Maxwell's laws". Then explained to me how a simplified, and therefore incomplete, set of mathematical models can account for all of reality... or is it just possible that by "simplifying" the "math" the model grew out of touch with reality? Sure it might give lots of right answers, and lead you to a lot of correct guesses, but there will always be a margin of error because of the simplification, and the more complexity you build on that simplification the larger the error is going to get.

So maybe, just perhaps, by using the ORIGINAL equations, the ones that didn't get dumbed down for mere humans, the ones that could easily be handled by any computer today, they might just find that a lot of "unexplained" phenomena might be easier to explain?

Edited by valkyrie_ice, 18 September 2009 - 09:44 PM.

[Blue]

And yet again and again you continue to quote papers which have not bothered to examine the physical EVIDENCE, just mill's Theories. I've stated I could care less about Mill THEORIES. The PROCESS works. That alone indicates that research MUST be carried further to discover why.

Dismissing a PHYSICAL PROCESS because of disagreement with the THEORY given to explain it is bad science. If you disagree with the theory EXPLAIN WHY THE PROCESS WORKS with one of your own. But most of those articles you are bringing up, which I have read, all share one common flaw. Not a SINGLE one of them has carried out their own experiments on the PROCESS itself. All that they have done is performed mathematical arguments to prove that the process can't possibly occur despite the fact that it quite obviously does.

Therefore... SOMETHING is happening which is not accounted for in their mathematical models, and therefore something needs to be adjusted in those models. Is Mill's theory the answer? Maybe not, but the fact still remains Physical Reality triumphs over Mathematical models.

And yet again and again you act as if BLP is a con artist. And yet in 20 years Mills has NEVER gone public, his business has operated on the verge of bankruptcy, and has fought accusations of being a con all that time. And yet in that twenty years of continuous research he has not had a single "investor" file fraud charges against him? And now has sold devices to eight power companies, be verified independantly, has made it's research available to anyone willing to do the experimental work and verify it, and kept exactly one secret, how to loop the process into a useful power system. I can think of simple high speed cartridge exchange system that would keep the process in continuous operation and I'm not even an engineer.

So basically your entire argument comes down to "Ignore the facts, protect the status quo, ridicule anyone who says the status quo might be in error."

Further research is called for to investigate a Physical Phenomenon. And rather than dealing with the Physical Reality that there is something occurring, all most of these "debunkers" are doing is putting their fingers in their ears going "I don't want to hear it, it doesn't fit into my pretty little formulas."

The PROCESS works? There is no independent evidence that large scale power production is possible. We only have a brief burst of heat. I can that from a match also. Regarding the evidence for quantum theory, see my earlier post which you may have missed:
http://www.imminst.o...o...st&p=347725

[niner]

"Mills says he’s published numerous papers describing his theoretical results in peer-reviewed journals. But critics counter by saying that the papers appeared in publications that focus on speculative work and that his theory has deep flaws that he hasn’t addressed."

These are not particularly flaky journals... These focus on the experimental side, not theory. This is a partial list from BLP's papers list. If you want to read any of the papers, go there as they have links to text for at least some of them.

Spectroscopy

Spectroscopic observation of helium-ion- and hydrogen-catalyzed hydrino transitions, R. L. Mills, Y. Lu, K. Akhtar, Central European Journal of Physics, August 2009, doi: 10.2478/s11534-009-0106-9. The original publication is available at
http://www.springerl...8...08702d&pi=3


Spectroscopic Study of Unique Line Broadening and Inversion in Low Pressure Microwave Generated Water Plasmas, R.L. Mills, P.C. Ray, R.M. Mayo, M. Nansteel, B. Dhandapani, J. Phillips, J. Plasma Physics, Vol. 71, No. 6, (2005), 877-888.

Emission in the Deep Vacuum Ultraviolet from a Plasma Formed by Incandescently Heating Hydrogen Gas with Trace Amounts of Potassium Carbonate H. Conrads, R. Mills, Th. Wrubel, Plasma Sources Science and Technology, Vol. 12 (2003), pp. 389-395.

Extreme Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Helium-Hydrogen Plasma R. Mills, P. Ray, Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 36, (2003), pp. 1535-1542.

Hydrogen Line Broadening

Tests of Features of Field-Acceleration Models for the Extraordinary Selective H Balmer alpha Broadening in Certain Hydrogen Mixed Plasmas R.L. Mills, K. Akhtar - Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, Vol. 34, Issue 15 (2009), 6465-6477, and may be purchased at http://dx.doi.org/10...ene.2009.05.148.

Substantial Doppler Broadening of Atomic-Hydrogen Lines in DC and Capacitively Coupled RF Plasmas, K. Akhtar, J.E. Scharer, R.L. Mills, 2009 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys., Vol. 42, Issue 13, 135207 (12pp), doi:10.1088/0022-3727/42/13/135207



Excessive Balmer a Line Broadening of Water-Vapor Capacitively-Coupled RF Discharge Plasmas, R.L. Mills, P. Ray, B. Dhandapani, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, Vol. 33, (2008), 802-815.

Evidence of Catalytic Production of Hot Hydrogen in RF Generated Hydrogen/Argon Plasmas - Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, Vol. 32, (2007), 3010–3035.

Evidence of An Energy Transfer Reaction Between Atomic Hydrogen and Argon II or Helium II as the Source of Excessively Hot H Atoms in Radio-Frequency Plasmas, R.L. Mills, P. Ray, B. Dhandapani, J. Plasma Physics, Vol. 72, No. 4, (2006), 469-484.

Comparison of Excessive Balmer Alpha Line Broadening of Inductively and Capacitively Coupled RF, Microwave and Glow-Discharge Hydrogen Plasmas with Certain Catalysts Mills, R.L.; Ray, P.C.; Nansteel, M.; Chen, X.; Mayo, R.M.; He, J.; Dhandapani, B. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 31, Issue 3, June 2003, pp. 338-355.

Recent:

Fast H in Hydrogen Mixed Gas Microwave Plasmas When an Atomic Hydrogen Supporting Surface Was Present, R.L. Mills, K. Akhtar - 05/23/09

Hydrino Chemicals

Excess Power and the Product Molecular Hydrino H2(1/4) Generated in a K2CO3 Electrolysis Cell - R. Mills, W. Good, J. He, Electrochimica Acta, 54 (2009), 4229-4236, doi:10.1016/j.electacta.2009.02.079. The final version of this article with full bibliographic details may be purchased at http://dx.doi.org/10...cta.2009.02.079

Comprehensive Identification and Potential Applications of New States of Hydrogen, R.L. Mills, J. He, Y. Lu, M. Nansteel, Z. Chang, B. Dhandapani - Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, Vol. 32, (2007), 2988–3009.

Spectroscopic and NMR Identification of Novel Hydride Ions in Fractional Quantum Energy States Formed by an Exothermic Reaction of Atomic Hydrogen with Certain Catalysts R. Mills, P. Ray, B. Dhandapani, W. Good, P. Jansson, M. Nansteel, J. He and A. Voigt - 03/13/03 The European Physical Journal - Applied Physics 28, 83-104 (2004).



Power

Commercializable Power Source Using Heterogeneous Hydrino Catalysts, R.L. Mills, K. Akhtar, G. Zhao, Z. Chang, J. He, X. Hu, G. Chu

Commercializable Power Source from Forming New States of Hydrogen, R.L. Mills, G. Zhao, K. Akhtar, Z. Chang, J. He, Y. Lu, W. Good, G. Chu, B. Dhandapani - Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, Vol. 34, Issue 2, January 2009, doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.10.018 and may be purchased at http://dx.doi.org/10...ene.2008.10.018

Applications


Lighting

Excessively Bright Hydrogen-Strontium Discharge Light Source Due to Energy Resonance of Strontium with Hydrogen, R. Mills, M. Nansteel, P. Ray - 08/09/01 Journal of Plasma Physics, Vol. 69, (2003), pp. 131-158

Argon-Hydrogen-Strontium Discharge Light Source R. Mills and M. Nansteel, P. Ray, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol, 30, No. 2, (2002), pp. 639-653.

Recent:

Low-Voltage EUV and Visible Light Source Due to Catalysis of Atomic Hydrogen

Diamond Films

Role of Atomic Hydrogen Density and Energy in Low Power Chemical Vapor Deposition Synthesis of Diamond Films R. Mills, J. Sankar, A. Voigt, J. He, P. Ray, B. Dhandapani, Thin Solid Films, Vol. 478, Issues 1-2, May 2005, pp. 77-90.

Hydrino-Terminated Surfaces

Highly Stable Amorphous Silicon Hydride R. L. Mills, B. Dhandapani, J. He, Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells, Vol. 80, (2003), pp. 1-20.

Lasers

CW HI Laser Based on a Stationary Inverted Lyman Population Formed from Incandescently Heated Hydrogen Gas with Certain Group I Catalysts R. Mills, P. Ray, R.M. Mayo, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 31, No. 2, (2003), pp. 236-247.

Stationary Inverted Lyman Population Formed from Incandescently Heated Hydrogen Gas with Certain Catalysts R.L. Mills, P. Ray, J. Phys. D, Applied Physics, Vol. 36, (2003), pp. 1504-1509.

Potential for a Hydrogen Water-Plasma Laser R. L. Mills, P. C. Ray, R. M. Mayo, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 82, No. 11 (2003).

[niner]

The PROCESS works? There is no independent evidence that large scale power production is possible. We only have a brief burst of heat. I can that from a match also.

I don't think you understand what the Rowan group has observed. Heat from a match would be fully explainable by conventional chemistry. The power they observed was substantial, and 1) no one can explain it using conventional chemical arguments, and 2) it is well explained by hydrino production, as has been corroborated spectroscopically.