Stephen
To answer the first problem - I believe that the specific heat goes up as the temperature rises, and is a higher the closer you get to m.p. * 130 KW for 15 minutes is actually 32.5 KWh. Only if that heat suddenly comes to a dead stop and you average over the hour ! Not likely - I corrected the post to say if the rate of heating continues for a full hour, it could melt over a ton of steel, but that is not the point. The point is that there should have been copious steam - there was none. I hope that you are not suggesting that this is physically possible.. .plus, stainless conducts heat so poorly that a 5 KG reactor would surely melt before that rate of energy release could be sustained for 15 minutes anyway - do you really doubt that? To answer Esa's question the report which got all of this nonsense started is not public. It was intended to be shown to Levi first - and the author is not "my expert" and in fact was unknown to be until two days ago. Jones Say WHAT? Query: is "problematic" Rossi-speak or Rothwell-speak for "physically impossible"? The specific heat of steel is 420J/KG/Deg C - and this equates to a heat requirement of approximately 375 KWh to melt one ton of steel from room temperature. Quick check: Let's see, 420 joules = 0.00012 KWh, so the specific heat of steel is about 0.00012 KWh/KG/Deg C. (A quick check of specific heat table gives reasonable agreement with your figure, so we'll go with yours.) Melting point of steel depends on the steel but we'll say 1500 C. So, the energy required to raise a kilogram of steel to its melting point is about 1500 * 0.00012 = 0.18 KWh, and the energy required to raise a ton of the stuff to its melting point is about 900 times that, or about 162 KWh. This is quite a bit smaller than your number. Perhaps you're including energy to disrupt the crystal structure; I don't know if that's necessary when figuring energy to melt steel (it sure is if you're melting water, of course). In any case, for the sake of argument I'll use your number. Let's move on: 130 KW was the supposed heated delivered by the Rossi device, according to the report - applied in 15 minutes, which is 420 KW/hr Please note that you have just *divided* the power by the duration (which was 1/4 hour) and claimed that's the total energy, which is not quite right. In fact, KW/hr is a senseless unit, unless you're talking about a rate of increase in heat production. 130 KW for 15 minutes is actually 32.5 KWh. This amount of heat would have melted over a ton of steel No, it wouldn't. 32.5 KWh is a great deal smaller than 375 KWh. It's also a great deal smaller than 162 KWh. and Rothwell thinks it that it represents reality in a 5 kilo reactor ! Your argument would have been more persuasive had you not divided where you should have multiplied.
