______________________________________________________________________________ | File Name : POTAPOV1.ASC | Online Date : 07/12/95 | | Contributed by : Jerry Decker | Dir Category : ENERGY | | From : KeelyNet BBS | DataLine : (214) 324-3501 | | A FREE Alternative Sciences BBS sponsored by Vanguard Sciences | | KeelyNet * PO BOX 870716 * Mesquite, Texas * USA * 75187 | | Voice/FAX : (214) 324-8741 InterNet - keelynet@ix.netcom.com | | WWW Mirror - http://www.eskimo.com/~billb | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| The following file provides information relating to a remarkable Russian heating device that uses a vortex and cavitation to produce heat in sufficient quantities to heat buildings and homes. Associated .GIF images are POTAPOV1.GIV and POTAPOV2.GIF. This text file combined with the 1&2 .GIFs is available bundled as POTAPOV1.ZIP. This article was written by Christopher P. Tinsley and published in the new journal called 'Infinite Energy'. Gene Mallove, ex-editor of 'Cold Fusion' magazine, is the editor and the publication is simply excellent. If you want to stay abreast of the latest happenings in the field of over-unity devices, please consider subscribing to: Infinite Energy - PO BOX 2816 - Concord, NH - 03302-2816 Tele : (603) 228-4516 - FAX : (603) 224-5975 InterNet email : INTERNET:76570.2270@compuserve.com Six issues per year for $29.95 US/Canada or $49.95 foreign ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This article is from Volume 1, No.2, May/June 1995, pages 33-37 Water Fuel Device Conquers the Marketplace! by Christopher P. Tinsley, Nottingham, UK Perhaps the oldest of military regulations is "Never Volunteer." It was my disregard for this wise and ancient rule which led to my arrival in late May (without a visa) at Kishinev, the fair capital of the former Soviet Republic of Moldova. Fortunately, I was in the company of that gentleman, scholar, linquist and distinguished scientist, Dr. Peter Gluck of Cluj in Romania. It was he (clearly believing - maybe rightly - that I was some naive and innocent Westerner) who had met me at Bucharest's Otapeni Airport, and accompanied me on what might best be described as an 'interesting' journey by train. One of the interesting things about the journey from Bucharest to Kishinev is the length of time it takes. Another is the removal of each carriage in turn from its bogies, and its placement on a different set of bogies - ones designed to fit the different separation of Russian rails. Fortunately, this naive Westerner had taken the precaution of providing himself with a large bag of peanuts and raisins, so we did at least have something to eat while being harangued by officials who did not seem to care that Intourist in London had told me that visas were obtainable at the border. The letter of introduction which I had asked Dr. Arthur C. Clarke to write also prove its value at this point. But what, you might ask, was your humble scribe doing in Moldava with a distinguished Romanian scientist, no visa, a bag of peanuts, and a letter of introduction from Arthur Clarke? Preceded by many rumors, reports at ICCF5 had formally confirmed the existence of a micro-cavitation water heater being sold commercially in the CIS. Independent reports from Moscow stated quite clearly that the machines were over-unity - they produced far more heat energy than they consume in electricity. Peter Gluck had visited the offices and factories of the VIZOR company in Kishinev, had reported back that there was indeed a thriving company manufacturing these devices; and had himself conducted preliminary tests which showed the over-unity effect. The purpose of our journey was, therefore, to purchase some of the machines, and obtain documentary evidence of their commercial success and over-unity performance. Somebody had to do it, and I volunteered. For all its minor discomforts and difficulties, this became the most extraordinary trip that this "Wandering Goy" has ever made - so far. For, make no mistake about it, the machines are real. The commercial success is real too. Without the generosity of Dr. Clarke, the journey would have been at the very least delayed. Arthur Clarke has frequently made the future by defining it in advance, but on this occasion he may well also have speeded into reality - in his own lifetime - something which he had suggested in a novel as a possible energy source of the far future. This is not at all certain, but, for reasons I'll explain, I lean strongly towards that idea. Despite Peter's report, I didn't know what to expect to see at VIZOR. I certainly didn't know what to expect of Kishinev either. Bucharest hadn't been much of a surprise, because it has featured so much on television in recent years. But, irritating as it probably is to the Moldovans, a few Westerners are even quite sure where it is. It is a small country lying to the northwest of Romania, and Kishinev is a pleasant and obviously thriving city. It may be that - as it seems - the old Soviet bureaucracy still exists there, but there is an air of energy and purpose to the place. The head of VIZOR and the scientist who is the inventor of the machines we had come to see, Dr. Yuri Semionovitch Potapov, gave Peter and I a full day of his time. Or as much of it as he could, he spent quite a lot of it trying to fend off customers who wanted more and more of his units. Fans of the series Monty Python's Flying Circus will recall the regular appearance on the show of the Spanish Inquisition in their robes. By contrast, we had a group of Orthodox clergy, who told us at length of the great savings they had found with the Potapov heating machines. One of these, a local parish priest, had tried to do a calorimetric study to find out just what was happening. The vagaries of the Moldovan electricity supply had defeated his efforts, but hadn't dampened his enthusiasm for the cost savings he'd had over the winter. Dr. Potapov agredd to install a larger machine in a nearby monastery, so that not only the water but the monk's cells could be heated. Further, he decided that he could install it at no cost to the monks. In fact we found out during the day - mostly from Dr. Potapov's enthusiastic staff - that he provides significant sponsorship to many Moldovan cultural and artistic people. He was also completely happy that all our discussions were made under the watchful eyes of the 8mm video and 35mm SLR camera I had brought with me. I had complete freedom to film and photograph anything whatsoever. So I did, and the resulting record has been seen with astonishment and enthusiasm by quite a number of people. I declined to perform the calorimetric tests which were offered. The only installation which was available at the time was the heating system for an experimental workshop in the Institute for Applied Physics, and it just wasn't practical to make satisfactory measurements. I could have done so, if I had been prepared to accept the figures for water volume and power consumption; and perhaps in a full day it would have been possible to get some kind of crude figures for static calorimetry. This failure should have dampened my enthusiasm, but it didn't. The real reasons for my enthusiasm are - apart from the personality of Dr. Potapov - the obvious commercial success of the company, and the unarguable volume of production of the heating machines. At one point I filmed two hundred of the middle-sized YUSMAR units awaiting shipment, and large numbers of the very large YUSMAR 5-M and 4-M machines, which are suitable for heating hotels or factories. (The name "YusMar" comes from Yu S (Potapov) with the 'mar' coming from the name of the Moldovan opera singer Maria Biesu). I understand that some customers buy only the basic unit, which is quite small; but most seemed to be sold complete with the pump and electric motor which drive the fluid through the unit itself. The motor is the sole source of power to the YUSMAR device. It might be pointed out that none of these things suggest an over-unity machine. That is quite funny to anybody who has spent much time in manufacturing industry. If anybody is having trouble with this piece of elementary logic, the answer to the riddle is at the end of this article. Heretical as it may be to suggest this, there "are" other means than the purely scientific for the assessment of reality. But what is happening inside a YUSMAR? The way Dr. Potapov tells it, it's quite simple. A vortex is established in the liquid in the tube. The velocity gradient within the liquid is so great that cavitation occurs - not between the liquid and the tube walls, but between adjacent layers of liquid. This is of course reminiscent of the Griggs Hydrosonic machine, but in that device the cavitation is induced by shear between metal and liquid, not between layers of liquid. Both the YUSMAR and the Hydrosonic device produce excess energy. The YUSMAR seems to be the more effective and simpler of the two, with tests being done in Belarus which suggest Coefficients of Performance (COP) of as high as 10. That is, ten times as much heat being produced as energy taken by the motor. The various independent test results do show a rather alarming variation in COP. A closer look shows that this appears to result largely from different parameters of use. The performance of the machine depends critically on a number of variable factors - liquid viscosity, flow rate, and the like. It is hoped that the tests due to start shortly in the USA will provide a proper set of performance curves to show how these parameters change the COP. It is well-known that "no experimental results can be accepted without theoretical confirmation." That is true within science, but - happily - not within the world of commerce. Even so, we must ask what is the source of the energy. No energy source other than chemical or nuclear energy is accepted by conventional science as being applicable to a machine of this kind. Chemical energy could not supply such power for any length of time, which leaves nuclear power - mass-energy conversion. Prof. Lev Sapogin of Moscow has proposed a most interesting theory to explain the YUSMAR machine, but his idea is for mass-energy conversion which is unrelated to conventional nuclear energy. What is certainly true is that unless there is a transformation of a stable nuclear species to another stable one, with no nuclear radiation emitted, then the energy does not have a nuclear source as we understand it. Thorough searches have been done for X-rays, gammas and neutrons, with nothing found. Admittedly, some lower energy particles might fail to penetrate the thin wall of the YUSMAR machine. But it is difficult to see how they could even be occurring with no effect on the machine or the water which flows through it. Raising of the natural level of deuterium in the water by a factor of ten appears to have no effect. The machines work just as well with the addition of ethylene glycol, they work with oil - they can even be made from food-grade stainless steel and used for pasteurising milk. What, then, is the source of the energy? Professor Sapogin's theory - that matter is being converted into energy by other than conventional nuclear means requires more understanding than I am able to bring to it. For nuclear energy to be released under these sorts of conditions - seems wildly improbable. The remaining notion is that the energy of the 'quantum vacuum' or Zero Point Energy is being tapped in some way. The appeal of the last idea is that there is at least a pre-existing theory for such a mechanism; even if its application in this case seems more than a little obscure. One thing is worth considering, even if only as a synthesis. The 'micro- fusion' machine of E-Quest operates by ultrasound-induced micro-cavitation. The Griggs machine and its predecessor use it too. The phenomenon of sonoluminscence occurs in micro-cavitation and, to judge by the article "Bubbles Hotter than the Sun" [New Scientist, April 29, 1995], not a very great deal is understood about the physics of these tiny bubbles. Another thought is that the destructive effects of cavitation have presented engineers with difficulties for decades, but perhaps there has been an opportunity hidden in the problem - and the attempts to suppress the problem have caused the opportunity to be missed. And the answer to the little riddle? How do we know a machine is over-unity without testing it? The answer is simple enough. It a machine sells widely as an electrically-driven water heater, in countries which are struggling to recover from a massive economic collapse, and satisfied customers keep coming back for more - then you have a mystery to solve. If the machines cost many, many times more than an immersion heater (which is by its nature virtually 100% efficient, and is presumably more reliable than the YUSMAR pump-and- motor-and vortex tube) - then you have a mystery which is soluble only by accepting that marketing forces operate just as well in the Commonwealth of Independent States as they do everywhere else. Doubtless our Gentle Editor will be fascinated to hear any alternative suggestions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Infinite Energy will keep you informed on the status of calorimetric testing of the "Yusmar" devices of Dr. Yuri Potapov. These tests will be occurring this summer in both the US and in the UK. Don't miss our continuing coverage of this apparently remarkable turning pint in the 'cold fusion' and new energy saga.....> The Editors of Infinite Energy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vanguard Notes This appears to be an astounding breakthroughs, not only because it uses practical vortex/cavitation/Hilsch tube technology, but it is admirable in how the inventors approached marketing the unit. They took one of 'get-off-your- butt', build it and SELL IT to those who can use it approach. Dr. Potapov and his group are to be highly commended for DOING SOMETHING, rather than sitting around talking about it or worrying about patents and other contracts that rarely come to manufacturing/marketing. FIRST TO MARKET WORKS! If the machine doesn't work, IT WON'T SELL and will collapse of its own failure. These guys KNEW they had a working device and just started selling it, not worrying about peer review, analysis by academia or anybody's endorsement. At our recent Roundtable meeting, this was THE hot topic, with correlations ranging from Schauberger's Vortex principles to the Hilsch tube that separates high volume air flows into hot and cold air streams. What a thought, using high velocity WATER or other fluids with a Hilsch tube? In a recent discussion with Bill Beaty, who runs an excellent alternative science page on Internet (http://www.eskimo.com/~billb) as well as a Vortex conference that stays on the cutting edge of Hydrosonic technology, he said that Scott Little had recently finished the first Over-unity test of a YUSMAR and these first tests did NOT appear to produce over-unity effects. However, there are two differences from the actual machines, one is a suction pipe at the bottom of the vortex and another is what appears to be a Hilsch separator in the inlet. Another test will be carried out soon with the modifications. We hope to have reports on these tests from Scott as well as other information on this major advance in PRACTICAL devices. One other point Bill brought up, a potential of 10KV develops in the tube when the YUSMAR is in operation and a blue glow appears around the device. This is reminescent of the high voltage halo that appears around high pressure water cutting equipment as well as a characteristic of Schauberger style vortex units. William Baumgartner used to demonstrate an experiment called the 'Wasser- Fadden' (water-thread). It required a high velocity stream of water >90PSI passing through a needle size hole and streaming into a bucket coated on the inside with wax to make it non-conductive. As the water streams out, it is ripped apart on a molecular level, releasing this molecular bonding energy to create a high voltage charge accumulation. The production of electricity from rapid water separation was researched in the 1800's by a Dr. Lenard. As the water flows, a glowing, levitating halo of water mist will form around the orifice. At any rate, the YUSMAR is creating a lot of excitement, not only in Russia but in the States. Various US companies are looking into the device and carrying out tests to determine actual efficiency and optimum operating parameters. See FRENETTE.ASC for correlating information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------