What's LENR? Can I suggest the question mention what the acronym means? Thanks.
Jonathan: you misunderstand the issue. It's not the amount of heat humans produce, it's the Greenhouse Effect causing in an imbalance between the infrared from the Sun and the amount Earth radiates away. This results in a temperature rise, predicted by basic physics and we can measure it happening. Almost no-one with any relevant education doubts this.
EDIT: Apologies Jonathan, I misunderstood you!
linlyons: thanks. Oh, Cold Fusion - Fleischmann and Ponds wasn't it?
Fusion (at great temperatures and under huge pressure) might be wonderful one day but with major efforts from the biggest players, with the biggest budgets still not quite getting there after decades, two blokes with a ￡5 budget really weren't going to manage it in a beaker in the lab. But honest open-minded scientists had to go through the process of showing it was all balls, as expected.
You don't have to worry about it since LENR (the acronym for at least two different phrases related to this area), CANR, LANR, and CMNS haven't produced any peer-accepted results. By the way, I carefully note that all these names and acronyms avoid saying there is any fusion. Nice side-step.
From the summary, Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, US Department of Energy, December 2004, "While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review." Which in effect means there is no affirming consensus.
When you see any affirming articles appearing in highly rated ISI JCR journals, let me know. In the meantime, you can rest easy about cold fusion causing us to heat up the earth. And when you get a chance, do some calculations on the assumption that ALL of the energy we produce/use turns into heat (it does) and see what you come up with in terms of watts per meter squared. You will find it's pretty small, around 35mW ? m2. The 2007 IPCC report (TS.2.5, "Net Global Radiative Forcing, Global Warming Potentials and Patterns of Forcing") finds a human forcing relative to 1750 of about 1.6W ? m2 for comparison. It's probably worse now. In any case, it will take quite a multiplying of current energy use to come close to what we are doing with greenhouse gases already (and growing.)
If you're going to believe in highly improbable things, why not believe that Daniel Sheehan's nanodevices will actually generate power while decreasing entropy. That way, you could not only have unlimited energy, but you would SOLVE the global warming problem.
Kano: "There is a peer review report coming out soon on Rossi's ecat "
http://www.e-catworld.com/2013/01/20/ros...
So the review should be published in March, or maybe April.
Face it Kano, it's a scam. It doesn't work. It's been "about to revolutionize the energy industry" for more than 20 years now. "Send money to get in on the ground floor." Consider, if it had a prayer, the Chinese would already be doing it. Way better than building a new power plant every week.
Keep in mind, no-one would like it to be true more than me. It would take the Koch brothers out of politics. And provide nearly limitless energy.
BUT, to address your question directly, "free energy" would reduce warming. CO2 operates world wide. Even over oceans. The total surface area of the earth is 201,061,929 sq miles, or 1 sq mile for every 30-40 people. Having limitless energy would allow us to reduce the amount of CO2 and thus radiate more energy away from earth. And control the temperature - We really could become God. ;)
wifflebop: "What's LENR? Can I suggest the question mention what the acronym means? Thanks."
LENR/CANR (lenr-canr.org) represent names intended to divert attention from the real name, "cold fusion", which has been around for 1/4 of a century, and doesn't work. Giving it a new name allows the snake oil salesmen to ask for people to "invest in the energy revolution", and have more than a snowball's chance in hell of getting any money. So, the current name isn't going to help, and and no-one's touching the topic with the real name, even with someone else's 10 ft pole.
There is a peer review report coming out soon on Rossi's ecat
linlyons –
I remember when the announcement out of Utah happened. Within a month, skeptics were voicing their doubts - and the whole thing was over a few months later. Of course, those skeptics were scientists, not the idiot science-denying riff-raff who now call themselves skeptics.
The last day or two I have been looking at LENR, and now have come to the conclusion that almost free, unlimited, carbon free energy, would be a total disaster.
Why? because no one would care how it would be used, and it would used everywhere, homes industry, agriculture, desalination and who would care about proper insulation if was that cheap, the resulting emission of heat would cause global warming and not because of GHG.
What do you think?
