BlackLight Power, Claims Game Changing Achievement of the Generation

[TinselKoala]

A good page on water explosions:
http://tesla3.com/free_websites/water_explosion.html

"At MIT (6,7). It was shown that the discharge of 3.6 kJ of stored capacitor energy would create pressures in excess of 20.000 atm. In 7 ml of water. 3.6 gm of water was ejected from an accelerator barrel at a velocity of the order of 1000m/s, sufficient to penetrate a ¼" thick aluminium plate."

"While not in all, but in many discharges under differing experimental conditions of varying capacitance, initial voltage and water volume, the kinetic energy of the water jet was larger than the electrical energy that had been stored in the capacitor bank."

"... A 2 mf capacitor was charged to voltages in the 1-10 kV range and discharged into a water column through a 38 mH inductor. At voltages up to about 6 kV, the water acted as a relatively high resistance and the circuit decayed as an overdamped RLC circuit.

Resistance decreased with time. When the resistance dropped below about 10 W (Ohms?), the water would explode if the capacitor still had sufficient energy."

Unfortunately there are many problems with the claims of Graneau and also of Hull. For example, the MIT experiment that punched a hole in the aluminum plate was not conducted in the way you might imagine from the description. In fact, the aluminum plate was in direct contact with the water, and there was a punch-die clamping down on the upper surface of the plate. The water arc explosion did not punch a hole at a distance with a "jet" of "fast fog", but rather it was a contact shot and shock waves in the water caused the overpressures needed to die-punch the hole in the covering plate. There is nothing unusual about this; metal-forming technology using the same basic method has existed for many years.

The famous "supersonic" fog jet in Hull's photographs was _assumed_ to be supersonic because of its imaged shape. No actual velocity measurements were performed by those people. However, when Peter Graneau was sponsored by Hathaway Consulting Services in Toronto, for several years, "fog" jet velocities _were_ actually measured.... and were never supersonic. Furthermore, George Hathaway, who appeared as co-author on several of Graneau's papers, withdrew his support and conclusions, once the proper analysis of the water-arc system was undertaken. This analysis demonstrated unequivocally what the practical research in Hathaway's laboratory had been showing for years: there is in fact no excess energy produced, over the energy used to charge up the capacitor bank to make the arc.

[tim123]

Hi TK, do you have any references for that? It must be a challenge to measure things like this right...

I've been thinking about the practical problems involved in getting current through water...

As with any dielectric - it breaks down in a thin channel between the conductors. This presumably flash-boils / electrolyses / burns just that very thin channel of water - causing the explosion effect. So only a teeny bit of water is 'converted' (to steam / HHO whatever). This is why there's so much spray in the youtube experiments...

So the main problem is how to isolate & 'ignite' the 'fuel' effectively...

I kinda like the hydrino theory - and there seems to be a decent amount of supporting evidence for it... I *really* like the idea that he has developed a GUT from classical principles. That's cool. Of course I'm far too slow to know if it's right, but it looks feasible...

[camelherder49]

If this is for real, based on cost per KWH to manufacture equipment and
then based on per KWH cost for production then I would say that all other
form of energy production would be SOL!!!!!

[TinselKoala]

Hi TK, do you have any references for that? It must be a challenge to measure things like this right...

It is indeed challenging. When Graneau himself was directing the research at Hathaway's lab in Toronto, chaos reigned. The man was so very sure his hypothesis was correct, that they simply bypassed scientific testing altogether and put major effort forth to capture and convert the excess momentum in the fog that Graneau was sure had to be there. Turbines, Pelton wheels, secondary projectiles, MHD (but not superconducting!), underwater rockets, you name it, all were tried. When none were successful it became apparent that there was something wrong... with Graneau's model, which relied on conservation of momentum and a circular set of assumptions. When science regained control of the project, a new model was developed with outside help, that described events at the arc and in the surrounding water with shock-wave mathematics. This allowed a proper accounting without circular assumptions and showed that there wasn't any excess energy liberated after all. In order to make the necessary measurements and to image the shock waves in the water, special ultrahighspeed, high contrast Schlieren video photographic techniques had to be developed, a transparent but incredibly strong arc chamber constructed, etc etc. Along the way, delving into the past research of Graneau and his early colleagues like Richard Hull, discrepancies were found like those I mentioned in the previous post, and more. All of this caused Hathaway ultimately to withdraw his name as co-author on some of their publications. You can find a lot of this information by googling keywords Graneau Hathaway water arc. I'll admit to having some "insider knowledge" that you might not be able to find on the public internet. Regardless, the Graneau story is a fascinating one, and Peter Graneau has some very interesting ideas. His book "Newton vs. Einstein" written with his son Neal is an important book, even if half of it is .... er..... rather speculative.

I've been thinking about the practical problems involved in getting current through water...

As with any dielectric - it breaks down in a thin channel between the conductors.

That's right. In the case of the Graneau work, a very thin channel indeed is actually involved in the water arc, when it works right. There is a phase called "electrolytic conduction" though. That is, you have your water sitting in your arc chamber and it has electrodes immersed or contacting the water. When the triggered air gap (TAG) is fired to close the circuit to the capacitor bank, if there is too much inductance or if the water isn't pure, or other factors, you can get conduction thru the bulk water that delays or prevents the sharp arc explosion from happening. There is usually a little bit of electrolytic conduction at the start of every arc, which can be seen on the oscillograms of the process.

This presumably flash-boils / electrolyses / burns just that very thin channel of water - causing the explosion effect. So only a teeny bit of water is 'converted' (to steam / HHO whatever). This is why there's so much spray in the youtube experiments...

Yes, that is basically right, except that the water may actually be effectively "torn apart" at the hydrogen bonds by the very high currents (several kiloAmperes) that develop in the arc. This is part of Graneau's hypothesis that might be correct, and it revolves around the phenomenon of Ampere tension. It's not quite boiling or flashing into steam; Graneau believed that the "fog" was actually cold and that the energy went into accelerating it rather than heating it. Graneau saw lots of spray and assumed that all of it was being produced at the arc, which is the fundamental error that led to his overestimation of the energy released in the arc process. In fact most of the spray is "entrained" or splashed water caused by the very small mass of water that is actually vaporised (whether by flashing to steam or by Ampere tension) in the tiny arc channel itself. This was revealed by the Schlieren shockwave imagery.

So the main problem is how to isolate & 'ignite' the 'fuel' effectively...

From the descriptions of the apparatus at BLP, it seems that he's using some kind of meshing gears to make arc chambers "on the fly", metering and refreshing the water in the pockets as the gears turn. This is just a guess on my part based on the descriptions I've read. I'd like to see the real apparatus; the published drawings aren't very detailed. These water-arc explosions create incredibly high pressures from the shock wave in the incompressible water. If a completely sealed and filled chamber is used, steel walls rip, bolts and welds break, all kinds of havoc results, like punching holes in thick aluminum plates. It is tough on apparatus, believe me.

I kinda like the hydrino theory - and there seems to be a decent amount of supporting evidence for it... I *really* like the idea that he has developed a GUT from classical principles. That's cool. Of course I'm far too slow to know if it's right, but it looks feasible...

Now we are above my pay grade. I'm no theoretician, but somehow I doubt that the hydrino theory is correct; smarter people than I have examined it and found it wanting in real evidence, mathematical coherence and predicted consequences. If his experiments and apparatus work as he claims, that's one thing. Making up an entire new physics to explain it.... that's harder for me to swallow. You have to ask... why isn't all the free hydrogen in the world in this lowest-energy hydrino form, if it exists?

[tim123]

You can find a lot of this information by googling keywords Graneau Hathaway water arc. I'll admit to having some "insider knowledge"...

Thanks for elaborating. It's fascinating stuff. And thanks for confirming my hypotheses.

From the descriptions of the apparatus at BLP, it seems that he's using some kind of meshing gears to make arc chambers "on the fly"...

Yes, it's ingenious, I think the patent covers all the details - but at 300 pages - I'm not sure I'll read it all at once...

These water-arc explosions create incredibly high pressures from the shock wave in the incompressible water. If a completely sealed and filled chamber is used, steel walls rip, bolts and welds break, all kinds of havoc results, like punching holes in thick aluminum plates. It is tough on apparatus, believe me.

I believe you.

Now we are above my pay grade. I'm no theoretician... Making up an entire new physics to explain it.... that's harder for me to swallow. You have to ask... why isn't all the free hydrogen in the world in this lowest-energy hydrino form, if it exists?

I must admit it's a bit over my head. He says, though, that what he's done is the opposite of making up a new physics - rather he's just dumped QM and extended Maxwell etc...

Now I know a bit more about it, I can see that what they're proposing - with the SF-CIHT device - while simple in principle, is quite a technical challenge to pull off. Assuming the principle is correct, and I think it's plausible... I look forward to reports of their upcoming demo...