U.S. Will Give Cold Fusion Second Look, After 15 Years

NY Times ^ | March 25, 2004 | KENNETH CHANG

[neverdem]

Cold fusion, briefly hailed as the silver-bullet solution to the world's energy problems and since discarded to the same bin of quackery as paranormal phenomena and perpetual motion machines, will soon get a new hearing from Washington.

Despite being pushed to the fringes of physics, cold fusion has continued to be worked on by a small group of scientists, and they say their figures unambiguously verify the original report, that energy can be generated simply by running an electrical current through a jar of water.

Last fall, cold fusion scientists asked the Energy Department to take a second look at the process, and last week, the department agreed.

No public announcement was made. A British magazine, New Scientist, first reported the news this week, and Dr. James F. Decker, deputy director of the science office in the Energy Department, confirmed it in an e-mail interview.

"It was my personal judgment that their request for a review was reasonable," Dr. Decker said.

For advocates of cold fusion, the new review brings them to the cusp of vindication after years of dismissive ridicule.

"I am absolutely delighted that the D.O.E. is finally going to do the right thing," Dr. Eugene F. Mallove, editor of Infinite Energy magazine, said. "There can be no other conclusion than a major new window has opened on physics."

The research is too preliminary to determine whether cold fusion, even if real, will live up to its initial billing as a cheap, bountiful source of energy, said Dr. Peter Hagelstein, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has been working on a theory to explain how the process works. Experiments have generated small amounts of energy, from a fraction of a watt to a few watts.

Still, Dr. Hagelstein added, "I definitely think it has potential for commercial energy production."

Dr. Decker said the scientists, not yet chosen, would probably spend a few days listening to presentations and then offer their thoughts individually. The review panel will not conduct experiments, he said.

"What's on the table is a fairly straightforward question, is there science here or not?" Dr. Hagelstein said. "Most fundamental to this is to get the taint associated with the field hopefully removed."

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun, combines hydrogen atoms, releasing energy as a byproduct. In March 1989, Drs. B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, two chemists at the University of Utah, said they had generated fusion in a tabletop experiment using a jar of heavy water, where the water molecules contain a heavier version of hydrogen, deuterium, and two palladium electrodes. A current running through the electrodes pulled deuterium atoms into the electrodes, which somehow generated heat, the scientists said. Dr. Fleischmann speculated that the heat was coming from fusion of the deuterium atoms.

Other scientists trying to reproduce the seemingly simple experiment found the effects fickle and inconsistent. Because cold fusion, if real, cannot be explained by current theories, the inconsistent results convinced most scientists that it had not occurred. The signs of extra heat, critics said, were experimental mistakes or generated by the current or, perhaps, chemical reactions in the water, but not fusion.

Critics also pointed out that to produce the amount of heat reported, conventional fusion reactions would throw out lethal amounts of radiation, and they argued that the continued health of Drs. Pons and Fleischmann, as well as other experimenters, was proof that no fusion occurred.

Some cold fusion scientists now say they can produce as much as two to three times more energy than in the electric current. The results are also more reproducible, they say. They add that they have definitely seen fusion byproducts, particularly helium in quantities proportional to the heat generated.

After a conference in August, Dr. Hagelstein wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, asking for a meeting. Dr. Hagelstein; Dr. Michael McKubre of SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif.; and Dr. David J. Nagel of George Washington University met Dr. Decker on Nov. 6.

"They presented some data and asked for a review of the scientific research that has been conducted," Dr. Decker said. "The scientists who came to see me are from excellent scientific institutions and have excellent credentials."

Scientists working on conventional fusion said cold fusion research had fallen off their radar screens.

"I'm surprised," Dr. Stewart C. Prager, a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin, said. "I thought most of the cold fusion effort had phased out. I'm just not aware of any physics results that motivated this."

[AdmSmith]

The believer in cold fusion will not accept a negative report. Thus the review panel will have no effect.

[neverdem]

Thanks for your post. This fellow was published in Science, a prestigious, peer reviewed journal. The question is how much energy must be expended in order to get the deuterium, even if cold fusion works, IMHO, because so far the Laws of Thermodynamics have never been violated, IIRC. Here's a link:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=Rusi+Taleyarkhan%2BPerdue%2BScience&spell=1

[Captain Beyond]

bump for later reading

[trickyricky]

I'm not sure what compels people to trash efforts to find new discoveries

Self-conceit, vanity, egotism.
The more knowledge we collect, the more puffed up we get.
And some people would rather say their mother's a whore than admit they're wrong.

[The Raven]

>>Fairy tales can come true

HEY!! It's right here in the NY Times...it has to be true.

[Consort]

Self-conceit, vanity, egotism.

....Oil stock shares...

[Las Vegas Dave]

Ping for later reading .

[Amelia]

placemarker

[Maurice Tift]

Some scientists maintain that it is impossible; others say it’s possible ...

I'd like to think that it is possible. Then, when the power company calls, you can say: Reconnect fee? I don't think so.

[Future Snake Eater]

Yeah, imagine how crazy it must've sounded when two guys in the 1940s said they wanted to make electricity "think." Sounds nuts, doesn't it? Well, I have about six of those impossible "computer" machines sitting in my apartment right now. Nothing is impossible, it just needs to be figured out.

[PatrickHenry]

Ping for half my list.

[reg45]

Not a chance! Can you say Big Oil.

Perhaps Big Oil will become Big Hydrogen!

[tm22721]

Perhaps Big Oil will become Big Hydrogen!

Or Big Palladium.

BUMP

[blanknoone]

cold fusion has continued to be worked on by a small group of scientists, and they say their figures unambiguously verify the original report, that energy can be generated simply by running an electrical current through a jar of water.

And all you have to do is 5 easy payments of $19.95 (in millions) in grant money...

[Keeper of the Turf]

U.S. Will Give Cold Fusion Second Look

I watched Cold Fusion last night. Warren Miller movies are awesome.

[edwin hubble]

thanks for the ping.

Fusion by-products and other anomalies have been reported.
We will see if they can be repeated.

[Diogenesis]

Many US and labs overseas (and some FReepers) have reproduced cold fusion.
There was an open demo this Summer attended by FReepers.
At that meeting, Mitshubishi and Toyota presented their 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

[sittnick]

Do you drive your Insight at night with headlights, use the A/C, use the heater?

The EPA does none of these things when they run their tests because the effect of these devices is small on a gas engine. It is huge on a hybrid.

Hybrids work okay in urban environments in temperate zones as "go to work" cars. I don't think we'll see one that can fit a large family (and the ones in my church these days are forced to buy 15 passenger vans due in part to ever more obnoxious child seat rules.)

[aruanan]

U.S. Will Give Cold Fusion Second Look, After 15 Years

I recently met someone from the Institute for Defense Analyses who told me they were asked by the government to prepare an analysis of the field of so-called cold fusion and that their conclusion was that there was actually something going on but that the government should let the science settle out before funding research.

[Diogenesis]

Another CF article here