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."

[Dead Dog]

Out standing overview!

"The 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid (Continuous variable transmission) is supposed to get 47 mpg city, 48 mpg highway"

My sisters TDI Jetta get's 48 mpg...at 90 mph. If the hippies want to save something...they should by a diesel.

[skinkinthegrass]

My previous comments were not meant as criticisms.. :)

[claudiustg]

---If you were to take the Insight and remove the gas engine, electric motor, batteries, and everything else involved with the hybrid system, then replace it with a 1.5L turbodiesel, you'd get as least as many mpg, with less cost, and fewer things that could go wrong. ---

The turbodiesel gets great milage and power' but is very dirty.

[claudiustg]

---Simple math shows that a few hybrid compact cars on the roads will not noticeably offset the gas mileage for heavier or inefficient cars.
For 100 city miles, a hybrid (47mpg) uses 2 gallons, while an Excursion or Escalade (12mpg) uses 8; overall for the two, you get 20 mpg, not the numerical average of their mpg's; but, there aren't as many hybrids compact cars as there are heavier trucks, and there never will be, because the compact cars are not as versatile.---

The Insight sure offsets my average milage though. I drive it to work, solo, fifty miles round trip a day. My other vehicle only gets about 18 mpg, and requires premium.

Insight: 250/60X$2.10= $8.75

Volkswagon Vanagon Syncro Westfalia: 250/18X$2.30= $31.94

That's $23.19 that is not spent on gas per week!

That's a savings of about $1159.50 per year.

[B Knotts]

There are some tremendous new diesel engines in Europe, but we can't get them here because of EPA/CARB regulations that are biased towards gasoline engine emissions.

VW has brought in their 335 hp/550 lb-ft V-10 TDI in the Touareg SUV. They can't sell it in the Phaeton, though, because of the NOx output.

A magazine tested the Phaeton at high speeds (up to 155 mph!) and got 22 mpg.

[claudiustg]

--- I'm probably going to put the P/U in the garage and get a mechanic to work on my old '86 Toyota P/U with 222,000 miles but that gets close to 30 mpg.---

Smaller P/Us! Remember when everyone wanted one! Then something happened and they all needed giant ones...

[claudiustg]

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

I do all of the above and drive pretty fast as well. That's why I only avaerage 61.3 mpg. :^)

Many Insight owners do a lot better.

[tm22721]

Gasoline is approaching $2 a gallon because of the Federal Reserve printing press, not supply vs. demand.

BUMP

[itsahoot]

How 'about realignment of carbon atoms from graphite into diamond...by squeezing lumps of coal between my butt cheeks?

Can't do it with your cheeks, but these guys seem to be doing it easy enough.

Wired: The New Diamond Age. Two companies in the US have perfected techniques for creating cheap artificial diamonds, virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. The story of how they got there is riveting - retired army generals purchasing cold war soviet technology, veiled death threats to scientists at conferences and best of all, a very real threat to the De Beers diamond cartel / monopoly. Interestingly, the most important application for the tecnology looks likely to be semi conductors. Diamonds can handle far higher temperatures than silicon, meaning chips so fast that silicon would just melt under the strain.

Personally though, I hope this development strikes a killing blow to the whole diamond industry. See Anil Dash for a good summary of why the world would be better off without it.

Posted 13th August 2003 - 10:43

[itsahoot]

Thermodepolymerization -- or "thermal depolymerization" -- is a process that converts stuff into oil. And by "stuff" I mean just about anything: garbage, medical waste, animals and animal parts (e.g., cows with mad-cow disease, or offal from chickens that have been made into McNuggets), used computer parts, tires, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum. This is not just a theoretical process. It is real, out-of-the-lab stuff happening on an industrial scale. It's being done by ConAgra Foods in Carthage, Missouri(click on link below to see plant) -- at one of the company's Butterball Turkey plants, where up to 200 tons of turkeys are being turned into oil every day. Once more: This is real stuff. Garbage is being turned into oil by a process that's safe, clean, and in use today. Essentially, thermal depolymerization or TDP mimics a process the earth itself uses to 'process' what gets buried and break it down. Over millions of years, heat and pressure break the bonds that hold these waste products together. TDP accelerates the process. The leading company doing TDP is Changing World Technologies of West Hempstead, N.Y. More to come...http://www.changingworldtech.com/home.html

[redgolum]

I am actually at least a little familiar with the process. It is being done, and will probably be done on a larger scale in the future.

In fact, I used to work for a company that made industrial grade veggie oil for lubrication, and that plant in Carthage was one of our direct competitors.

[batter]

Bump! My thoughts exactly.

[dennisw]

Cold fusion is definitely worth the DOE sinking $25 million into to see if there's anything there. Ever see "The Saint"? What a great movie and Eugene Malove was an adviser.

[DallasMike]

Here north of Dallas I've seen huge traffic jams that could have been solved by anticipating growth and planning for it.

Then we have the monstrosity of the High-5 interchange, completely with separate lanes for the ridiculous HIV, er, HOV lanes. That's going to be fun when it rains or ices.

Like your name, by the way. I read the Narnia books at least once a year.

[justlurking]

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." [Bill Gates, 1981]

Gates claims he never said that, and as far as I've been able to determine, no one has produced an authorative citation.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,1484,00.html
http://www.urbanlegends.com/celebrities/bill.gates/gates_memory.html
http://interactiveu.berkeley.edu:8000/lj/stories/storyReader$31

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

The process mentioned here is "hot fusion" and has nothing to do with the 15 years old fraud. NYT is a waste of time and paper.

Yeah, the NYT is worse than the National Enquirer.

Good point about the "fusion", I didn't know that.

[GEC]

Oil will lose it's dominance by 2050, if not sooner.

It's had a great run, but enough's enough.

[FairOpinion]

Very interesting.

I think the fact that they are still working on it means that there is a possibility -- emphasizing possibility -- there may be something to it.

It surely would be great if there were.

[FairOpinion]

Looks like your ping list is for people interested in science.

Could you please add me to it.

I appreciate it.

[DoughtyOne]

It would be a major discovery if this were to pan out, but it may never do so. Still it does seem as though something is going on here, perhaps not.

I don't think people should get all charged up and push this beyond reason, but I would like to see an exhaustive study to make sure nothing is going on.

As far as I am concerned, proven possible or impossible, the study on this will be productive. I wouldn't spend more than six concerted months on this project unless there is some initial success, some evidence that serious headway is being made.

Infatuation must not be a part of this, but a little flirtation is good for the soul. Heh heh heh...