Next Big Future - Latest Comments in Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

EliRabett — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:18:34 -0000

There appears to be a simple chemical explanation for the heat generation, moreover explosions have been long known to occur when Raney nickel is heated in vacuum

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

ak47 — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:03:01 -0000

Reality check on this long lived scam. According to Google, this deal with BLP is the only thing 'Estacado Energy' has ever done, since it doesn't appear elsewhere in Google.

Looking at the website for the parent compant, Roosevelt County Electric Cooperative at http://www.rcec.org/ is hardly inspiring either. They appear to be a small regional utility with less than 30 employees.

Remember that Mills has been promising results since the 1980's when BLP was called HyrdroCatalysis Inc and they signed a big deal with Thermacore. At that point they claimed to have working cells.

It's not clear if Connectiv ever followed up on their investment which was made in 1996. Mills was promising production by 1999 at that point. Here we are ten years later and it's still all hot air.

I will also point out that this sort of scam is not completely harmless. Some of the VC money Mills has spent comes from pension funds like CALPERS.

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

nextbigfuture — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:20:04 -0000

Precision and references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Fuel type Average power in TW[1] Energy/year in EJ
Oil 5.6 180
Gas 3.5 110
Coal 3.8 120
Hydroelectric 0.9 30
Nuclear 0.9 30
Geothermal, wind,
solar, wood 0.13 4
Total 15 471

12:00 PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
Rank Country/Region Electricity - production (kWh) Date of
Information
- World 19,894,777,395,212[2] 2007
1 United States 4,367,874,939,000[2] 2007
2 People's Republic of China 3,277,720,000,000[2] 2007
3 Japan 1,160,042,169,000[2] 2007
4 Russia 1,014,870,000,000[2] 2007
5 India 774,660,000,000[2] 2007
6 Germany 636,500,000,000[2] 2007
7 Canada 602,406,000,000[2] 2007
8 France 566,531,000,000[2] 2007
9 Korea, South 439,984,000,000[2] 2007
10 Brazil 433,594,000,000[2] 2007
11 United Kingdom 397,516,000,000[2] 2007

Capacity
The U.S. electric power industry's total installed generating capacity was 1,089,807 megawatts (MW) as of December 31, 2007—a 1.3-percent increase from 2006.
http://www.eei.org/industry...
so almost 1.1 terawatts of electricity
China will soon pass this figure but has not yet In 2007:
Total U.S. electricity generation was 4,159,514 gigawatt-hours (GWh)—a 2.3-percent increase from 2006.

US uses about 4000 gigawatts of primary energy which 1,100 gigawatts is peak electrical capacity

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

PeterWol — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:14:41 -0000

Hey fellas - read the press release. The license is for "up to 250 MW " in total and there is no indication that the first projects will be for more than 1 to 20 MW. If you look at the business stuff on the BLP site it is clear that development results will be shared among licensees. Don' t make really detailed comments if you have never seen, and will never see the actual contracts! In fact one can only wait. Surely Connectiv in NJ will already have some priority as they seem to have financed BLP some time ago, but they might not need a normal license, or need to announce anything until they are good and ready. I support the two previous comments and parts of several others. But a contractual limit can not be taken as the actual planned power output of the first generator(s).

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

Brock — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 04:14:07 -0000

"I think it is absolutely foolhardy for a power company to be signing into a technology to deliver 250 megawatts of thermal power ... when something 1/1000th the size hasn't even delivered a continuous stream for a few days."

We don't know what's been shown behind closed doors in Mills' lab. Further, some of Mills' investors are utilities. Perhaps they have a financial interest in helping make this work. Who knows, at this point? My post above was pure speculation, obviously.

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

nextbigfuture — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:40:08 -0000

We do not know how long they are running the several 50KW prototypes or what they are showing to prospective customers. Apparently what they are showing was enough to get this deal signed.

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

GoatGuy — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:19:09 -0000

Uh, hum.

250 megawatts ... continuous? Or in one lump sum. Well, let's be positive
and assume it is continuous. OK, then they're going to get about 70
megawatts of electricity, provided the thermal output is driving a modern
steam turbine system with regeneration and every other trick in the industry
applied. Cool! If it can be done, and if it can be shown ... then I think
it is just great. I'll make a contribution by buying stock.

However, it seems really odd to me that a big conservative electrical
generation company would be buying into a technology that supposedly will
continuously generate 250 megawatts of thermal output ... when even a
continuous 50 megawatt system isn't operating merrily someplace. Or a 10
megawatt system. Or a 2 megawatt system. Or a 500 kilowatt system. How
about a 100 kilowatt system? Or just even a measly 20 kilowatt system
(which is barely large enough to power a house)?

I mean, come on folks. The argument presented by BROCK along the lines of "
They may (wisely) be refraining from 'wasting their time' on solved problems
like running a steam turbine." Is just a huge, enormous cop-out. I mean
really. The very FIRST thing that they would want to do would be to
engineer the technology to produce CONTINUOUS output ... demonstrating
viability for the power-generation customers that they're trying to woo!!!

No matter what, that is a guarantee: to be able to show that their precious
thermal generator is viable as an energy source, it has to show extended
thermal output. Rather than just deploying it to get a whole lot of cool
water warm (AKA "calorimetric measurement of thermal energy production"), it
can and should be used to get a whole lot of water under high pressure
heated to the 400C or higher that is the "valuable thermal point" of a
pressurized steam generation system.

They don't even have to hook it up to a generator. Just release the steam
at 300C to 400C at high pressure. On this, you're right ... they don't need
to demonstrate the output of electrical energy, just a LOT of high pressure
steam, for days and days, continuously.

An hour or two won't do.
A 'batch system' also won't do.
A system that separately prepares all the catalyst and just "feeds it" to
the reactor chamber ... won't do (or won't unless the whole energy-cost of
creating the catalyst is measured and included in the balance sheet.)

THIS IS NOT ASKING TOO MUCH.

Demonstrate a measly 20 KW-th for a few days. Hell, I'd even be fine with
them just boiling unpressurized water at 100C. It is the cheapest "heat
sink" that can be manufactured, and absorbs 2.26 megajoules per kilogram on
vaporization.

At 20 KW continuous, that would be about 120 seconds or two minutes to fully
vaporize 1 kilogram (liter). So, they'd be going through 30 liters or about
8 gallons of water an hour. Times 24 ... about 200 a day. Nothing! Costs
about two bucks.

Yes, I remain skeptical. I think it is absolutely foolhardy for a power
company to be signing into a technology to deliver 250 megawatts of thermal
power ... when something 1/1000th the size hasn't even delivered a
continuous stream for a few days.

They're just funding research. Good for Mills!

GoatGuy

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

GoatGuy — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:01:15 -0000

OK, the idea that there is a bought-and-paid-for upstanding professor at the
UNM that backs Dr. Mill's research as profound ... is great! It warms the
cockles of my heart to hear that there are tenured, respected scientists
that feel that Mills is onto something really big.

Now ... since I'm a simple kind of scientist that just likes to see things
work ... let's have that 50 KW (or 1 KW ... I don't care) electrical
generator prototype. Let's show that all the energy invested in creating
the magic catalyst can be generated by the extra energy afforded by Dr.
Mills' hydronium. Let's see that the said device delivers a measurable,
tangible, storable stream of hydronium-stuff. Finally ... lets show that it
can run for something quite reasonable. A week.

That is all the demonstration I need, supplanted by "keen observers" that
will detect unreported energy inputs, or fabricated results.

I'm not at all cynical, just skeptical.

=b=

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

Brock — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:13:39 -0000

CHALLENGE TO BLACKLIGHT: "power thyself with thy tech, and better yet, create a significant surplus"
--------------------

Perhaps this is what the Estacado guys are expected to do. The BLP guys may (or may not) be sharp tacks, but that doesn't mean they necessarily have the practical skills to run all the phases of electrical generation. They might just be making catalysts and heat. They may (wisely) be refraining from "wasting their time" on solved problems like running a steam turbine. The plan could be to provide Estacado with a heat source and say "You guys figure out what to do with it." And that would actually seem to be the plan, based on the licensing agreement. The agreement after all is for 250 MW of thermal heat, which Estacado is free to do whatever it wants with.

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

nferguso — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:09:43 -0000

Why New Mexico? I might have a clue. The utility area is East-Central New Mexico (includes Portales), which is about 100 miles East of Albuquerque. What's in Albuquerque? The University of New Mexico.

"One of the most supportive scientists is Jonathan Phillips, a professor in the mechanical engineering department of the University of New Mexico. Mr Phillips, who says he has received consulting fees from Blacklight, sees Dr. Mills’s work as profound." - New Energy Times, http://www.newenergytimes.c....

So, are we looking at pseudo-science, or are we contending with pseudo-skepticism? Dr. Phillips is a prominent professor at UNM. This letter discusses some of his views regarding Dr. Mills' theories and his critics: http://luttrellica.blogspot...

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

nextbigfuture — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:16:30 -0000

Supposedly they have more of the continuous process worked out. Some system to recharge the batch in the generator. I can think of how that might work in terms of a connected system for catalyzing new hydrinos and recharging the nickel powder with the gas. I would expect the delays to be less since they are looking at smaller units. Not 500MW. They are talking 1MW avg size. So smaller generators can have a faster rollout. but you are right that there will be production scale up and product line buildup delays.

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

nextbigfuture — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:17:30 -0000

Hi Goatguy,

When I said "the skeptics will not be convinced ", I was not saying that the skeptics will not be convinced by any evidence. Clearly if the evidence that you referred to were provided then almost everyone would be convinced. I was saying that the Rowan University evidence was one more piece but that I recognized that the Rowan University evidence was still not very strong. Same thing for this financial deal. If Estacado plugs in a bunch of Blacklight power generators and did sell the power and ran power meters that would be convincing but a paper financial deal with anyone is not sufficient to pass the extraordinary claims require strong evidence.

Blacklight Power is a private company with private funding. If they are choosing to run their company where they are open to valid skepticism then that is their choice.

As an observer it appears that 2009 will be the year where the uncertainty is removed. Blacklight is giving all the indications that they will be shipping their system as a product by the second half of 2009. If they are legit then probably around March-May 2009, they should take something like the step you propose. Generate regular power somewhere. Otherwise they could not ship working generator product in 2009. Entire schedule slip of 6-15 months could still be legit but they are currently giving no indications that is happening. The drumbeat of announcements seems to be building to product shipping in 2009.

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

GoatGuy — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:08:26 -0000

Thanks, Disqus.

Here is something to consider regarding the sequence:

0 mo. Announcements of syndicate formation.
+2 yr. Technology demo.
+1 yr. Prototype demo.
+1 yr. Version 1 commercial demo.
+2 yr. Version 2 full commercial demo.
+1 yr. Manufacturing expansion.
+1 yr. Version 3 maturity phase.
+2 yr. Industrial scale demo.
+1 yr. Manufacturing expansion.
+0 yr. Subsystem licensing.
+2 yr. Version 4 maturity phase.
+3 yr. Municipal scale demo.
+1 yr. Technology-to-manufacture licensing.
+1 yr. Independent sourcing.

I'm not being pessimistic, at all. From the moment the syndicate (company,
coalition, cooperative or bloc) forms, it takes a couple of years to
demonstrate technology that is independently tested. From there, another
year to build a "full system" prototype. Is BL there? I don't think so
yet. They seem more at the final phases of the technology demo.

But it takes another 2 years to work out a practical small
commercially-manufacturable product. That's just the nature of this kind of
tech. From there, a "line" of product needs developing. Another year or two
at least to get a full set of commercial products flowing. To establish
markets, sales, compositing, delivery, installation, maintenance, track
record and engineering modifications to early units.

After that, it takes quite a few years of conservative scaling to hit
industrial targets, then municipal targets. No one is going to drop
$500,000,000 onto a multi-gigawatt generator system when the largest extant
example is 20KW.

Also, and finally ... lest anyone be unduly impressed by the '50,000 watt'
generator (that delivers a total of 1 megajoule or one million watt-seconds
of thermal energy) ... let's just recall: one million watt-seconds divided
by 50,000 watts is 20 seconds. Yet, the device is reported to have
delivered the power over 20 minutes. Well, it must be a nice long tail to a
fast reaction ... OK. But to put it different, a device that delivers
50,000 watts of thermal energy continuously ... would only be able to
produce 35% or 17,000 watts of electricity, if it were working almost at the
limits of the Carnot cycle of thermodynamic efficiency. At this scale
(50KW-th), I don't expect any reasonable steam-powered generator to produce
more than 15% efficiency. The thermal numbers are too low: Carnot cycle is
limited by the difference between the hot side and the cold drain. So...
the device shouldn't be able to make more than 10HP or 7.5KW of electrical
power.

And it needs to be continuous. Not a "batch demo" of mixing up some
chemicals, seeing the pot get real hot, then slowly cool down over the next
half hour. That's not a generator, but a pot of hot rocks.

=GoatGuy=

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

GoatGuy — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:36:32 -0000

Come on, fellow goats ...

There is curious, but not continuous science in play. Apart from the 'technology' unfortunately passing all of my goatish 'you-gotta-be-kidding-me' tests, the fact that some hairbrained energy derivative, in the middle of New Mexico (land of sun, lots of it...) is "licensing" the technology ... means bullsquat.

If the bunglers at Blacklight really, really have a technology that could be seriously considered, then it seems to me that (for at least SOME of the "$50,000,000" invested) they should have a nice big 50 kilowatt generator, whizzing around 24/7 ... generating copious amounts of REAL kilowatt-meter readable power, copious amounts of their supposed hydronium. The hydronium alone, delivered in 'lecture bottles' would be a goldmine for physical chemists to try their hand at. Its patented, right? Why aren't they generating kiloliters of the stuff?

Same goes for the power. If even they were generating enough power to power their own plant ... and be able to show that ALL the power inputs to making the "R-H" stuff were being covered by the energy produced ... THAT would be a frikkin' compelling demonstration of the viability of this avante-garde idea.

No, I continue to maintain that there is "no beef".

PS - by the way BW - per the previous article, where it was said at the outset, "People who don't believe won't be convinced" (paraphrased) ... is an insult, square to the face. SKEPTICS aren't dogmatic savants who only believe what they 'want' to believe. They most commonly are scientists, predispose to believe that the laws of Thermodynamics (etc.) are conserved, immutable, and for solid theoritical basis. I'm perfectly willing to UNDERSTAND how BL's tech works, insofar as it is demonstrable not just as a pulsed energy system, but a whole-cycle system.

I mean, let's be realistic here: if one only looks at the energy delivered by an energy storage system without taking into account the energy input required TO the storage system, well then, there is no implication that anything special is going on. If for instance, I were to pump air into a used salt mine for years and years, then without acknowledging that part, announced I had found a miraculous ultra-high pressure energy reserve, that anyone could make, and so on. ... you would instantly see it as bunk. Yes, of course there would be a lot of contrained energy in that air. But it took way more to get it in there to begin with!

Same for the BL tech. If you read (or even can ... they're quite dense with pseudoscience) the BL 103 page PDF, you eventually will get to the sample preparation area, which outlines a catalyst making process that is HUGELY energy costly. This is sidelined however, because like the great pressurized air cavern, the product, a super-catalyst, is itself the object of the "technology". Well, there's bunk on that.

Take care, folks. Don't be led down the path by brightly colored crumbs that anyone with a calculator and a sense of scale can connect into a potential super-highway of profit, energy and greed.

CHALLENGE TO BLACKLIGHT: "power thyself with thy tech, and better yet, create a significant surplus".

After fifty million bucks has been "invested", is that asking too much? is it? Does that really make me a hopeless skeptic? We all should be asking BlackLight the same thing. If their technology has such enormous potential, then I should think that they could get together the mechanics to have an multiphase system that generates all the power they need, and then some.

Just a simple 4 phase system: a reactor that takes the "stuff" and gets the thermal energy out, creating steam, to drive a highly efficient turbine generator. Another phase that continuously removes the byproducts and (I suppose) regenerates them ... with the waste-heat and extra energy created by the generator. A third phase that stores, rations, load-levels the "plant", keeping it viable for the long run. And a fourth phase that recovers the H(1/p) byproduct, purifies it, and stores it in pressure vessels to be sold as a highly valuable chemistry reactant.

Think about that paragraph. It doesn't require belief, just proof. Proof that an extra $1,000,000 in "stuff" can be cobbled together to form a full on, excess energy producing, byproduct producing reactor. For in real terms, if the installed price is $500/kw ... (their tables, not mine), then 50 KW worth ought to only cost $25,000 ... or in research premium terms, maybe 20 times that ... or $500,000 ... less than 1% of their $50,000,000 investment!

GoatGuy

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

nferguso — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:13:08 -0000

The table is misleading in certain respects. The "Installed Cost" column for all power sources except Blacklight describe the total cost to build a power plant (per kW), but the Blacklight value is the cost to update the heat source for an existing plant. Also, fuel cost may not reflect the cost of replenishment of a catalytic material required for the process. BTW: the fuel is not hydrinos; it's hydrogen. Hydrinos are the ash. Any source of hydrogen can be used. The chemical reaction is so energetic that even water can be broken down for its hydrogen economically. It is claimed.

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

enantiomer2000 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:56:28 -0000

I wonder if it would be economical to miniaturize the technology so every home can generate its own power. All that electrical infrastructure could become redundant... thoughts?

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

nextbigfuture — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:11:53 -0000

That means 500,000 KW is the average size which is a 500 megawatt power plant.

Blacklight is planning average size of 1 megawatt. This is 10,000 one hundred watt bulbs at once or about 300 american homes.

The US is using for electricity 4000 Gigawatts of electricity and the world 17000 gigawatts. But all watts are not equal as nuclear plants can generate 90% of the time while wind is 20-40%.

Power density tells you roughly how big the generator size is. Blacklight is half as dense power wise as a combustion car engine but is 20 times denser than a fuel cell and 60 times denser than a coal plant.

then there is how many kwh (kilowatt hours you can get from the fuel. From the hydrinos for blacklight and gasoline for a car engine.)

Then there is cost per kw

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

Brock — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:35:52 -0000

Oh boy. I am suspecting that some people will have a whole lot of crow to eat very soon. I hope they're hungry. :-)

No word on when they're shipping the goods though.

Hey, since this thing generates heat, it's be a nice combo with Dean Kamen's stirling engine ...

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

enantiomer2000 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:00:08 -0000

Brian, what does the average generating capacity mean? Is this per Black Light unit? If you had many stacked together,you would simply generate more power, right? the 500,000 for coal is for an entire coal plant, right? I guess I just don't understand that chart very well =(

Re: Blacklight Power Signs First Commercial Deal with Estacado Enery

enantiomer2000 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:41:34 -0000

wow. hope this is for real. if it is, it could essentially replace almost all other energy systems.