posted on May, 26 2017 @ 10:03 PM
a reply to:
Discotech
I wouldn't explain it that way, I'd explain it this way.
LENR experiments are typically looking for "anomalous heat production" not explained by other known sources such as chemical reactions, which would
then lead researchers to suspect it's instead a "Low Energy Nuclear Reaction" or something else unknown, which can be exploited for energy
production.
The experimental method is known as "calorimetry" which involves accounting for all your heat sources and heat losses and looking at expected input
versus expected output. Let's say you take a D-cell battery and short out the terminals, it will start heating up. If you submerge the battery in
water you can measure the exact temperature rise in the given amount of water which tells you the calories of heat given off by the battery (hence the
name calorimetry).
What LENR researchers hope to see is a heat output that's far greater than what could be explained by such a battery reaction or other chemical
reaction, but in such experiments it's notoriously difficult to control all the variables to get exact results, which was a problem with the original
"cold fusion" experiments, so the scientific community's reaction to anomalous results is to consider them dubious until replicated carefully in
another lab and many such results have not been repeatable.
Of course there's also a difference between running a small calorimetry experiment and commercial energy production.
edit on 2017526 by Arbitrageur because: clarification