Posted on 10/21/2012 5:33:40 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Cold fusion, otherwise called Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR), is, theoretically, the fusing together (rather than a chemical reaction) of elements at “normal” temperatures such that they release more energy than is required to fuse them.
This is an idea that is incredibly appealing because if it could be achieved it would provide mankind with, again in theory, incredibly cheap energy. In practice, there could be drawbacks such as pollution and radiation but until cold fusion is actually demonstrated and developed, no one knows.
Hot fusion, on the other hand, is the process by which elements would be fused together at temperatures and pressures only found naturally in stars.
While hot fusion, yet again theoretically, would create more energy than it would to induce fusion the conditions required are so extreme that rather than a simple test tube it requires machines the size of houses and enormous supporting facilities that bring the whole project up to factory scale (see the National Ignition Facility). Hot fusion is also guaranteed to have radioactive waste products.
Unfortunately it turned out that the Fleischmann and Pons experiment was not reliably reproducible. In the academic fracas that followed, both men’s reputations were ruined and the field was quickly relegated to the domain of “fringe” science along with perpetual motion, telekinesis, and anti-gravity.
While mainstream science was apparently quite happy with this situation and went about spending billions of dollars on “hot” fusion (there are many who claim that cold fusion was systematically marginalized and deprecated by establishment scientists), a few “rogue” researchers continued with cold fusion research and, over the last few years, evidence has piled up that cold fusion may, in fact, be real.
I wrote “may … be real” because until recently the evidence looked promising but hardly conclusive.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
A reusable spacecraft not an improvement over non-reusable ones, plus able to carry significant payloads? That’s a new one to me. Never mind the existence of the shuttle centering around the “space station” (unidentified), and apparently the shuttle work with the Hubble telescope has been forgotten.
If by non-rocket-based propulsion you mean something that will accelerate spacecraft beyond what a rocket is capable of, we seem to have a bunch of dead ends. Rockets will be the main way to get into earth orbit, though.
They want aneutronic fusion because it’s probably unattainable outside of stars.
You are correct, it was HOT FUSION
hate it when I get the hot/cold mixed up
My point, which obviously doesn’t really disagree with yours, is that they don’t really want us to find any form of cheap, non-polluting energy.
I feel as if I have been transported back in time to when the only way most people saw news was at the movie house on the weekend.
And the Newsreel Clips are all harping about some unrealistic goal of something that will eliminate vacuum tubes.
That is the essence of the problem: getting independently reproducible results. The guy who can figure out how to do that will win the Nobel Prize.
That said, I've been disappointed often enough that I have little interest until we have
(1) someone with reputation evaluating it ON THE RECORD
(2) in his independent lab and
(3) having it run long enough and generate enough energy that there is no possibility of a chemical reaction, preferably by an order-of-magnitude.
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