Star Scientific Ltd. and the return of muon-catalyzed fusion

[mchargue]

Breakable wrote: Their video presentation smells as fake (actors rather than people working) and their equipment looks like props

I’ve noted the same odor myself, but we’ll see. If there’s something there, a paper, or patent, will eventually be come out. Grist for the mill until then.

[TimS]

Don’t think so, guys.

The founder, the current chairman’s father, is Stephen Horvath. He still appears to be the senior scientific person at Star Scientific, at least he is the elder gent sitting at the instruments in the videos on the website.

This is the same Stephen Horvath involved in the “water powered car” silliness in Australia back in the ’70s. He was sufficiently convincing back then that he actually had a senior politician, Queensland’s premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, host a public display of the car. Unfortunately, it would not start and his mechanic was at the pub.
Horvath’s hydrogen Fairlane – The Courier-Mail

He claimed at the display that the car was powered by thermonuclear reactions. However, he actually got a patent for it back then,
United States Patent 3,980,053 – Google Patents
which depicts a car running by burning hydrogen created by electrolysis powered by the car battery charged by the alternator… so there was no fusion or muons involved, just many gullible people. He claims in the patent that his key innovation was a circuit that increases the electrolysis speed, generating hydrogen fast enough to power a car, as if that was the problem with this concept.

This gentleman may well be an excellent engineer. I believe the water powered car people are still selling the circuit in his patent for driving the electrolysis, with the caveat that you can’t sue them if it doesn’t actually work to run your car on water. Hovarth Energy Australia, created around the water powered car, became Star Energy a little over a decade ago. Now it is Star Scientific. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

[Ivy Matt]

Breakable wrote: Their video presentation smells as fake (actors rather than people working) and their equipment looks like props

It looks like a corporate video. Most of the scenes are undoubtedly posed, but the principal “actors” in the video are the company’s principals, unless they managed to find actors with very good likenesses. Clearly the video is telling a story of the design, construction, and testing of the “pumpkin”. The main thing I’m interested in is what exactly the pumpkin is supposed to do and what measurements Star Scientific has collected from it. I won’t deny I’m interested, but I’m not holding my breath in the expectation that they have made significant new advancements in muon-catalyzed fusion.

[Joseph Chikva]

TimS wrote: He claimed at the display that the car was powered by thermonuclear reactions. However, he actually got a patent for it back then,
United States Patent 3,980,053 – Google Patents
which depicts a car running by burning hydrogen created by electrolysis powered by the car battery charged by the alternator… so there was no fusion or muons involved, just many gullible people. He claims in the patent that his key innovation was a circuit that increases the electrolysis speed, generating hydrogen fast enough to power a car, as if that was the problem with this concept.

Electrolyze or thermonuclear?
Hydrogen can be burnt in engine. And that is not a problem – in fact very limited alterations are required.
In Soviet Union in 70s hydrogen powered passenger plane TU-154 with cryogenic hydrogen tanks flied.
But hydrogen as such has very non-attractive energy per volume density and electrolyze of water is very energy intensive.
Due to today’s ratio of prices between natural gas and kW*h of electricity industrial scale production of hydrogen is conducted with the help of steam reforming method and not electrolyze. And both methods are chemical and not nuclear.
Here is a link of elecrolizers for hydrogen production from water (in Russian): http://ekb.ru/production/14

In that patent I see not nuclear but conventional electrochemistry cell for splitting water. For running of which the energy is required from externally.

[TimS]

Joseph Chikva wrote: Electrolyze or thermonuclear?
Hydrogen can be burnt in engine. And that is not a problem – in fact very limited alterations are required.
In Soviet Union in 70s hydrogen powered passenger plane TU-154 with cryogenic hydrogen tanks flied.
But hydrogen as such has very non-attractive energy per volume density and electrolyze of water is very energy intensive.
Due to today’s ratio of prices between natural gas and kW*h of electricity industrial scale production of hydrogen is conducted with the help of steam reforming method and not electrolyze. And both methods are chemical and not nuclear.
Here is a link of elecrolizers for hydrogen production from water (in Russian): http://ekb.ru/production/14

In that patent I see not nuclear but conventional electrochemistry cell for splitting water. For running of which the energy is required from externally.

Certainly, a car powered by stored hydrogen is an interesting concept. However, in the patent, the hydrogen is obtained by electrolysis in the car. The patent states that this cell is driven by a circuit powered by the battery. The patent states that outside of these fuel supply additions, the construction of the rest of the car is conventional. Specifically, it shows an alternator connected to the engine, which would charge the battery. There is no hydrogen storage.

The system is essentially a perpetual motion machine based on the idea that electrolysis can create hydrogen that can then be burned for more energy than was required by the electrolysis. In fact the system could be turned directly into a perpetual motion machine by taking the water vapor exhaust, letting it condense, and feeding it back into the electrolytic cell. The reason this is relevant to this thread is that the author of the patent is the same person behind the company this thread is about, and the technology discussed in this thread is a continuation of this hydrogen technology from 30 years ago, although with added muons.

This perpetual motion idea is being widely marketed on the internet today by various “water powered car” web pages. I have not seen any link between these pages and the author of this patent, although there are references to this person as a creator of the technology. Such pages typically sell a design for around $50, and have claimed many tens of thousands of customers. People are desperate to find cheaper fuels. If LPPX had these millions of dollars, the world might actually have cheaper fuel by now. Also, when I heard about this a few years ago, I spent hours on the web trying to find a report from someone who had bought one of these designs and said that it did not work. I could not find anyone, although such a report might have been buried in the thousands of web pages of resellers claiming that it did work. I did find semi-credible claims that adding a small amount of hydrogen to the fuel mixture might improve gas mileage of older vehicles with poor mileage to begin with, but that is not what is depicted in this patent or what is being sold in most of these web pages.

[Joseph Chikva]

TimS wrote: The system is essentially a perpetual motion machine based on the idea that electrolysis can create hydrogen that can then be burned for more energy than was required by the electrolysis. In fact the system could be turned directly into a perpetual motion machine by taking the water vapor exhaust, letting it condense, and feeding it back into the electrolytic cell.

That is your interpretation of their claims?
Or they claim so?

[TimS]

My interpretation, which is why I said “essentially …”. It says that the electrolysis is powered by the battery, no other source of power. Since the battery is powered by the alternator, and the alternator by the engine, the car runs without any input power.

[Joseph Chikva]

TimS wrote: My interpretation, which is why I said “essentially …”. It says that the electrolysis is powered by the battery, no other source of power. Since the battery is powered by the alternator, and the alternator by the engine, the car runs without any input power.

It is impossible. When battery will be discharged you will have negative energy balance.
You would have zero balance in case if at every energy conversion stages you would have 100% efficiency.
But taking into account that internal combustion engine has about 25%, alternator and rectifier – 80-90% and electrolytic cell – 80% balance will be negative.

[TimS]

Joseph Chikva wrote:

My interpretation, which is why I said “essentially …”. It says that the electrolysis is powered by the battery, no other source of power. Since the battery is powered by the alternator, and the alternator by the engine, the car runs without any input power.

It is impossible. When battery will be discharged you will have negative energy balance.
You would have zero balance in case if at every energy conversion stages you would have 100% efficiency.
But taking into account that internal combustion engine has about 25%, alternator and rectifier – 80-90% and electrolytic cell – 80% balance will be negative.

Is impossible, yes. However, after reading patent, that is what it shows in my interpretation. Electrolysis powered by battery charged by alternator. Many thousands people have spent millions dollars on book of instructions how to install this in car, so people will buy this idea. Too bad these people do not put money in focus-fusion (or other [em]possible[/em] idea) as well.

[Joseph Chikva]

TimS wrote: Is impossible, yes. However, after reading patent, that is what it shows in my interpretation. Electrolysis powered by battery charged by alternator. Many thousands people have spent millions dollars on book of instructions how to install this in car, so people will buy this idea. Too bad these people do not put money in focus-fusion (or other [em]possible[/em] idea) as well.

I think that your regrets aren’t quite proved.
People spending money for tuning of their car won’t spend them for something else.
If not to install the wonderful perpetual engine but to install turbocharger, or ceramic brakes, or new exhaust tube, or sport absorbers, etc.

And as I see, once that person has already made a swindle having earned millions.

[Author]

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