Atomic fusion in a cup? - It's hard to believe -

The Globe and Mail ^ | March 7, 2004 | Stephan Strauss

[UnklGene]

Atomic fusion in a cup? - It's hard to believe -

By STEPHEN STRAUSS Saturday, March 6, 2004 -

Double, bubble, boil and generate energy like the sun? It may not scan into Shakespearean prose, but U.S. researchers will soon publish strong evidence of a recipe to generate fusion power with tiny bubbles, which does sound like a modern witch's brew.

The power source is ultrasonic noise aimed at a clear glass canister whose size would qualify as a grande latte in a coffee house. The sound waves rattle through a liquid solvent in the glass and, as they do, create minute (on the order of a thousandth the width of a human hair) bubbles. Further sound causes the bubbles to expand, compress and then collapse. When they do, some of the hydrogen atoms in the liquid seem to fuse and give off light and energy.

This is potentially revolutionary, because atomic fusion is exactly what the sun does to generate its gigantic outflows of energy, and the search to create energy through a fusion reaction on Earth has been the dream of physicists for the better part of half a century.

"What we are doing, in effect, is producing nuclear emissions in a simple desktop apparatus," says Rusi Taleyarkhan, a professor of nuclear engineering at Purdue University and a co-author of a paper on the research. "That really is the magnitude of the discovery -- the ability to use simple mechanical force for the first time in history to initiate conditions comparable to the interior of stars."

If this all sounds vaguely familiar, then you may be recalling that an earlier form of the experiment was announced in 2002 to loud scorn from other nuclear physicists. "The paper's kind of patchwork, technically, and each of the patches has a hole in it," one critic said at the time. The uproar was so heated that officials at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where the experiments were conducted, wrote to Science magazine urging its editors to delay, if not kill, the controversial paper.

The new data were generated with what is reported to be a bit less than $1-million (U.S.) provided by the U.S. Defence Department's Advanced Research Project Agency. The money allowed for the use of much more precise instruments that could gather more data over a longer period of time.

The researchers have estimated that, to create fusion, the energy inside the imploding bubbles reached 10 million degrees C and pressures equal to 1,000 million times that which Earth's atmosphere exerts at sea level.

While nobody is saying sound-wave fusion is proved, the new research, which will be published in the journal Physical Review E this month, is turning at least some former critics into agnostics.

"I think it [the phenomenon] is difficult to ignore; it is still improbable that it is right, but is becoming increasingly difficult to say that it is wrong," says Lawrence Crum, a University of Washington physicist who was one of the reviewers on the 2002 paper and a strong critic of it.

However, it also must be said that despite the new, peer-reviewed publication, some of the original critics of the research remain as intransigent as ever. "All I can say is that the same set of characters are doing the same thing all over again. What should be done is someone independent should look at it. . . . I don't think it is true," says Dan Shapira, another nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge who had been unable to replicate Prof. Taleyarkhan's research.

While they are clearly ebullient about what looks like a validation of their sketchier, early findings, Prof. Taleyarkhan and his U.S. and Russian co-authors are not saying we will see usable fusion energy generated in a big coffee cup any time soon. This is largely because they have not achieved fusion's breakthrough nirvana: a system that generates more energy than energy that has to be put in.

"I don't know it will happen, but I am hopeful it will," Prof. Taleyarkhan says.

Failing the grand advance, the scientists suggest that some day their findings might still lead to security detectors that use neutrons to probe the contents of suitcases or devices using the neutron emissions that follow from fusion to manufacture new materials.

Stephen Strauss writes on science for The Globe and Mail.

[Servant of the 9]

Gotta hope it is true. A form of 'cold fusion' would be the most revolutionary technologica advance since the invention of the horse.

Gotta doubt it. Hard to believe something this simple wouldn't have shown up as a side effect in many other experiments.

So9

[hosepipe]

I'm glad, My hard headed disbelief and skepticism..
Won't stand up to even a minuscule amount proof..
prompting me to say, "Yeah!, IN MY DREAMS"...

[Darksheare]

Sonoluminescence.

[bolobaby]

Any possibility that could reduce dependence on foreign oil should be fully explored!

[Tennessee_Bob]

Just more of the same here in Oak Ridge. Taleyarkhan will claim it, others will disprove it. Still and all, it's job security out at ORNL.

[rface]

if they can get a big ol' SUV to run on it, then I am all for it

[BikePacker]

It looks like they did it, folks!

This is extremely exciting - and should be on every front page of the world.

[BikePacker]

The Sonoluminescence Process

The Soluminescence Process.

Sonoluminescence is the conversion of sound into light. Ultrasonic waves are aimed at an air bubble in a small water cylinder. The sound waves cause the bubble to oscillate furiously: (a) the bubble starts out at a size around 5 microns (millionths of a meter); (b) then it expands to a maximum size (not to scale) of about 50 microns. At this large size there is a near-vacuum inside the bubble because of the relatively few air molecules present. This low-pressure near-vacuum region is surrounded outside the bubble by a much higher-pressure region, which causes (c) a catastrophic collapse of the bubble to between 0.1 and 1 microns. During this compression phase a flash of light (d) emerges from the bubble.

Source

[Physicist]

It's not obviously wrong on the face of it, but then, neither was the Pons/Fleischmann fusion cell. (Contrary to the revisionist history espoused by cold fusion cultists, many physicists accepted the Utah results as valid, until people tried to reproduce them.) What hurts the acceptance of this paper is that there have already been claims of fusion from sonoluminescence that have been withdrawn. That inevitably raises the credibility bar in the minds of most people.

The attractive idea behind sonoluminescence as a path to fusion is that a spherically convergent wavefront can produce some terribly extreme conditions. On paper, this can work, which is what keeps people looking and hoping.

[WVNan]

Well I could have told them this. That happens all the time in my microwave.

[punster]

Are the experimenters getting any increased radiation levels when they perform the experiment?

The expected reacction is: Two deuterium atoms fuse to per form an atom of helium-3 plus a neutron and gamma radiation.

An experment with one watt of energy output would put out a dangerous level of radiation.

[genefromjersey]

I'd like to see an immediate practical application: some sort of device that would capture the blast waves generated by the stereos in passing cars at midnight,and return them to their source,in the form of an energy beam ( survival of vehicle occupants optional).

[Diogenesis]

Actually, Physicist, the record on cold fusion is clear -- it works, though not as simply thought in 1989.
Many US and labs overseas have reproduced it.
There was an open demo this Summer attended by FReepers.
At that meeting, Mitshubishi and Toyota presented there recent results.

Click for info

Theoretical Framework for Anomalous Heat and 4He in Transition Metal Systems

Deuteron Fluxing and the Ion Band State Theory

Calorimetric Principles and Problems in Pd-D2O Electrolysis

Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Systems, Final Report

Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System, Vol 1

Thermal and Nuclear Aspects of the Pd/D2O System, Vol 2

"...California is experiencing rolling blackouts due to power shortages.
Conventional engineering, planned ahead, could have prevented these
blackouts, but it has been politically expedient to ignore the inevitable.
We do not know if Cold Fusion will be the answer to future energy needs,
but we do know the existence of Cold Fusion phenomenon through
repeated observations by scientists throughout the world.
It is time that this phenomenon be investigated
so that we can reap whatever benefits accrue from additional scientific understanding.
It is time for government funding organizations to invest in this research"
Dr. Frank E. Gordon
Head, Navigation and Applied Sciences Department
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego

Hope your accuracy improves on this, as it is interesting physics.

[William Tell]

From the article: The uproar was so heated that officials at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where the experiments were conducted, wrote to Science magazine urging its editors to delay, if not kill, the controversial paper.

Also from the article: I don't think it is true," says Dan Shapira, another nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge who had been unable to replicate Prof. Taleyarkhan's research.

Lack of reproducibility is the hallmark of bad science. It doesn't mean that there is nothing interesting going on. It just means that the people publishing are unable or unwilling to publish sufficient information and guidance for others to replicate their experiments.

If they are unwilling to do so, then there is little need for peer-review. They might as well take out an ad in the National Enquirer.

If they are unable to provide information allowing for replication of their experiment, then it does not really constitute an "experiment".

There is definitely something "interesting" going on with sonoluminescence. It would not be unheard of for ambitious scientists to rush any results they get into print in order to claim the early credit. With the amount of science which goes on nowadays, one must hurry to be first at anything.

[William Tell]

Physicist said: "The attractive idea behind sonoluminescence as a path to fusion is that a spherically convergent wavefront can produce some terribly extreme conditions. On paper, this can work, which is what keeps people looking and hoping."

Yes.

Unlike what seemed to be happening with cold fusion, the mechanism here seems to "make sense" physically. The suggested phenomenon can be expected under modified circumstances which might make the effect stronger.

I find myself wondering what would happen if one could generate such bubbles in mercury, for example. One would not expect luminescence through the mercury. This might enhance the temperature. It might take more energy to create a bubble of a certain size, but the increased mass of the mercury might result in a smaller volume at collapse.

Is there a way to introduce a source of hydrogen in a pool of mercury? Perhaps nuclear fission can be induced instead of fusion. There may be fission products which are much easier to detect at very tiny concentrations.

Semiconductors operate due to the very interesting things which happen at the interface between dissimilar materials. Perhaps even more interesting things would happen at the interface between a pool of mercury and water floating above it while sonic energy is introduced.

What fun.

[MainFrame65]

This is not likely to accomplish a reduction in petroleum use. Most of the oil is used for transportation fuel, and virtually all transportation is powered by oil. The reason is that oil is a VERY dense, compact, convenient, and inexpensive way to store and transport energy. Of course, the energy is only available in combination with oxygen, usually from the atmosphere.

I suspect that even if it can be made to work, continuously, and produce more energy than it requires for operation, the energy that it produces will not be sufficiently concentrated to be useful unless it is scaled up to mammoth proportions. In other words, the fusion powered wristwatch, computer, car, home, or even industrial plant is unlikely.

The form of energy it will produce is almost certainly just heat. That will either boil water for steam or perhaps produce steam directly in the reaction chamber somehow. The steam will power a conventional turbine for electricity, with waste heat used for water purification, chemical processing, and eventually space heating.

But for transportation, we will have to produce an energy dense chemical fuel such as gasoline, diesel, or alcohol, or find an efficient way to isolate, store, and transport hydrogen. Today, oil is the cheapest source of transportation fuel available, primarily because it already contains all of the fuel energy. It just needs a little tweaking (reforming) to become the uniform, standardized fuels we are used to.

But we are using it faster than it was created, and at some point its use will become uneconomic. And by the way, the only place that pure hydrogen can be obtained in large quantities in an exothermic reaction is also from oil.

Will we "run out" of oil? Not no but HECK NO! We can manufacture the molecules by synthesis if necessary. Proved oil reserves is a concept based equally on resources and economics. Higher prices encourage exploration - there are more drill rigs active today than at any other time in history. They also make marginal production profitable, both from smaller, more remote, or more difficult to extract sources and from old fields using newer or more advanced (and expensive) recovery techniques. And they encourage substitution - direct substitution, like alcohol, or indirect, like using electric heating instead of heating oil. Or even by using nuclear sourced electricity to manufacture fuel in a large, combined-cycle plant.

[July 4th]

Sonoluminescence.

Interesting, since that's the term, but it doesn't appear anywhere in the article.

This is one of those things that everyone wants to work, but it will be quite a while before any viable technology can be developed from the process - assuming it works. But imagine, even the experiments are being done on a desktop scale. Once they can build it into something the size of a laptop battery, I'll be all set. Need more power? You can buy your package of refill solvent from any drugstore or airport news counter.

[Wonder Warthog]

"(Contrary to the revisionist history espoused by cold fusion cultists, many physicists accepted the Utah results as valid, until people tried to reproduce them.)"

Uh, the "Utah" results (muon-induced cold fusion by S.E.Jones) were never doubted and have been reproduced numerous times. What WAS doubted was Pons and Fleischman's electrolytically-generated version (which was not done at Utah).

[kennedy]