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Cold Fusion Back From the Dead
IEEE Spectrum ^ | 8/31/04 | Justin Mullins

Posted on 08/31/2004 4:48:56 PM PDT by LibWhacker

U.S. Energy Department gives true believers a new hearing

Later this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive a report from a panel of experts on the prospects for cold fusion—the supposed generation of thermonuclear energy using tabletop apparatus. It's an extraordinary reversal of fortune: more than a few heads turned earlier this year when James Decker, the deputy director of the DOE's Office of Science, announced that he was initiating the review of cold fusion science. Back in November 1989, it had been the department's own investigation that determined the evidence behind cold fusion was unconvincing. Clearly, something important has changed to grab the department's attention now.

The cold fusion story began at a now infamous press conference in March 1989. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, both electrochemists working at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, announced that they had created fusion using a battery connected to palladium electrodes immersed in a bath of water in which the hydrogen was replaced with its isotope deuterium—so-called heavy water. With this claim came the idea that tabletop fusion could produce more or less unlimited, low-cost, clean energy.

In physicists' traditional view of fusion, forcing two deuterium nuclei close enough together to allow them to fuse usually requires temperatures of tens of millions of degrees Celsius. The claim that it could be done at room temperature with a couple of electrodes connected to a battery stretched credulity [see photo, "Too Good to Be True?"].

But while some scientists reported being able to reproduce the result sporadically, many others reported negative results, and cold fusion soon took on the stigma of junk science.

Today the mainstream view is that champions of cold fusion are little better than purveyors of snake oil and good luck charms. Critics say that the extravagant claims behind cold fusion need to be backed with exceptionally strong evidence, and that such evidence simply has not materialized. "To my knowledge, nothing has changed that makes cold fusion worth a second look," says Steven Koonin, a member of the panel that evaluated cold fusion for the DOE back in 1989, who is now chief scientist at BP, the London-based energy company.

Because of such attitudes, science has all but ignored the phenomenon for 15 years. But a small group of dedicated researchers have continued to investigate it. For them, the DOE's change of heart is a crucial step toward being accepted back into the scientific fold. Behind the scenes, scientists in many countries, but particularly in the United States, Japan, and Italy, have been working quietly for more than a decade to understand the science behind cold fusion. (Today they call it low-energy nuclear reactions, or sometimes chemically assisted nuclear reactions.) For them, the department's change of heart is simply a recognition of what they have said all along—whatever cold fusion may be, it needs explaining by the proper process of science.

THE FIRST HINT that the tide may be changing came in February 2002, when the U.S. Navy revealed that its researchers had been studying cold fusion on the quiet more or less continuously since the debacle began. Much of this work was carried out at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, where the idea of generating energy from sea water—a good source of heavy water—may have seemed more captivating than at other laboratories.

Many researchers at the center had worked with Fleischmann, a well-respected electrochemist, and found it hard to believe that he was completely mistaken. What's more, the Navy encouraged a culture of risk-taking in research and made available small amounts of funding for researchers to pursue their own interests.

At San Diego and other research centers, scientists built up an impressive body of evidence that something strange happened when a current passed through palladium electrodes placed in heavy water.

And by 2002, a number of Navy scientists believed it was time to throw down the gauntlet. A two-volume report, entitled "Thermal and nuclear aspects of the Pd/D2O system," contained a remarkable plea for proper funding from Frank Gordon, the head of navigation and applied science at the Navy center. "It is time that this phenomenon be investigated so that we can reap whatever benefits accrue from scientific understanding. It is time for government funding agencies to invest in this research," he wrote. The report was noted by the DOE but appeared to have little impact.

Then, last August, in a small hotel near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, some 150 engineers and scientists met for the Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. Conference observers were struck by the careful way in which various early criticisms of the research were being addressed. Over the years, a number of groups around the world have reproduced the original Pons-Fleischmann excess heat effect, yielding sometimes as much as 250 percent of the energy put in.

To be sure, excess energy by itself is not enough to establish that fusion is taking place. In addition to energy, critics are quick to emphasize, the fusion of deuterium nuclei should produce other byproducts, such as helium and the hydrogen isotope tritium. Evidence of these byproducts has been scant, though Antonella de Ninno and colleagues from the Italian National Agency for New Technologies Energy and the Environment, in Rome, have found strong evidence of helium generation when the palladium cells are producing excess heat but not otherwise.

Other researchers are finally beginning to explain why the Pons-Fleischmann effect has been difficult to reproduce. Mike McKubre from SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is influential among those pursuing cold fusion, says that the effect can be reliably seen only once the palladium electrodes are packed with deuterium at ratios of 100 percent—one deuterium atom for every palladium atom. His work shows that if the ratio drops by as little as 10 points, to 90 percent, only 2 experimental runs in 12 produce excess heat, while all runs at a ratio of 100 percent produce excess heat.

And scientists are beginning to get a better handle on exactly how the effect occurs. Stanislaw Szpak and colleagues from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command have taken infrared video images of palladium electrodes as they produce excess energy. It turns out that the heat is not produced continuously over the entire electrode but only in hot spots that erupt and then die on the electrode surface. This team also has evidence of curious mini-explosions on the surface.

Fleischmann, who is still involved in cold fusion as an advisor to a number of groups, feels vindicated. He told the conference: "I believe that the work carried out thus far amply illustrates that there is a new and richly varied field of research waiting to be explored." (Pons is no longer involved in the field, having dropped from view after a laboratory he joined in southern France ceased operations.)

For Peter Hagelstein, an electrical engineer at MIT who works on the theory behind cold fusion and who chaired the August 2003 conference, the quality of the papers was hugely significant. "It's obvious that there are effects going on," he says. He and two colleagues believed the results were so strong that they were worth drawing to the attention of the DOE, and late last year they secured a meeting with the department's Decker.

It was a meeting that paid off dramatically. The review will give cold fusion researchers a chance—perhaps their last—to show their mettle. The department has yet to decide just what will be done and by whom. There is no guarantee of funding or of future support. But for a discipline whose name has become a byword for junk science, the DOE's review is a big opportunity.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: cold; coldfusion; energy; fusion
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To: longshadow; RadioAstronomer

If only they knew what was happening in my la-BOR-a-tory. MMMRRRUUUHAHAHAHAHA!


41 posted on 08/31/2004 6:34:08 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (A compassionate evolutionist!)
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To: Diogenesis
My Friend,

Pons and Fleischman thought it did. I read their original preprints and papers when they came out. So sad. I (a physical chemist) consulted a physicist and it became clear that they had no idea what they were doing with their detector. This is not news, as anyone at the time who was interested did the same thing and came to the same conclusion. The signal they had could not possibly be the neutrons they expected. Also they were alive which, is another piece of evidence for no neutrons. And, their calorimetry, sadly and critically, was no good.

What is so sad, is Marvin Fleischman in the 70's discovered the surface enhanced Raman effect. This is used in spectroscopy, is real, and useful work is published to this day using it. He was a good guy who did reputable work.

In my opinion, Pons and Fleischman were good chemists who got greedy, while investigating outside of their field of competency. They should have hooked themselves up with an experimental nuclear physicist to prevent all this unpleasantness. If they had done so, they would have tested a properly and fairly posed hypothesis and sent it packing.

As for their calorimetry, they had no excuse.

As a cautionary tale, this is a wonderful story. You have big egos, greed, self-deception, and treading outside one's competency. It has become a con man's game, and if you are a con man, you can make money on it.

As for what happens in the electrolytic cell, it may be interesting, it may not be properly understood, but for certain nuclear fusion is not happening.

I don't want to sound rude, but as for why there have to be neutrons, no one can teach you the physics on this board. You can find plenty of reading material on the subject in university libraries or if you are young enough, goto a graduate school. And if you can't be an expert, consult one. That's what they are for.

-cw.
42 posted on 08/31/2004 6:52:18 PM PDT by colderwater
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To: ECM

Dr. Randell Mills (Blacklight Power Inc.) doesn't need any stinking neutrons. He has Hydrinos!


43 posted on 08/31/2004 7:28:28 PM PDT by RazzPutin (Walk fast and look mad. Nobody will bother you.)
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To: LibWhacker

Plain old fission is a sure thing. Wouldn't it be better to step it up? And also why do we neglect the research on hot fusion - downsize it in the US and stall it in ITER? Inquiring minds want to know?


44 posted on 08/31/2004 7:28:42 PM PDT by silversky
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To: colderwater
"I don't want to sound rude,
but as for why there have to be neutrons,
no one can teach you the physics on this board.
You can find plenty of reading material on the
subject in university libraries or if you are
young enough, goto a graduate school.
And if you can't be an expert, consult one.
That's what they are for.
"

Dear friend,
You are rude both for being impetuously wrong
AND for ignoring the question to which NONE of the pompous negativists
(State Dept? Hot Fusion? Democrat? Oil company?) absolutely have no scientific answer.
Reminds us all of the following.


"Professor Goddard ... does not know the relation of action to reaction ... he only
seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in our high schools"
[New York Times, January 13, 1920]



"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
[Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895]



"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
[Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre]

45 posted on 08/31/2004 8:08:06 PM PDT by Diogenesis
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To: ECM
Hokay, here we go:

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in energy time form

Delta E*t~h/(2*pi) where h is Planks const.

So for two D-hydrogen atoms to fuse you need what, about 8 Kev? Right? And room temp. is close enough to 0 Kev to call it that. So that is your E. All fusion happens by "tunneling" (well most anyway). Fusion occurs because on atom "borrows energy from the universe" but only for a short period of time. How much time?

t<(h/(2*pi))/E

Now if we were to assume that all the energy is linear we can get the velocity of the atom.

E=1/2mv^2 (yes you should use gas eq. but screw that)

v=sqrt(2*E/m)

Max distance the atom can travel with that energy before it has to "give it back to the universe"

x=v*t

If the distance between atoms is X then we find:

X>>x

Fusion doesn't occur unless the HUP is completely wrong.
46 posted on 08/31/2004 8:10:07 PM PDT by chmst
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To: chmst
Good for you, chmst.

There are TWO problems with your probative analysis.
First, the HUP is (when ignoring the delta-p delta-x form)
delta E * delta t ~ h/(2*pi)
That is, they are uncertainties of the value and not absolute value.
Please note that you switch the two in your 1st through 3rd equations.

Second, in cold fusion there are substantial fugacities
attained using locally large electric field intensities
and the impact of the loaded lattice
which your equations 4 (and others) ignore.

On the other hand, the negativists have
much company in being unable to perceive humanities' creativity.


"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
[Ken Olson, Chairman and founder Digital Equipment Corp., 1977]


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

47 posted on 08/31/2004 8:20:37 PM PDT by Diogenesis
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To: LibWhacker

Yippeee!!!! And about time.


48 posted on 08/31/2004 8:26:12 PM PDT by hershey
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To: ECM

WOW that is some response. Let's go back to my original question.

Now I again ask where was your PHD work done in Chemical Physics?

You sound like the collegues of Watson, Crick and Franklin in the late 50's when they had discovered something interesting about little protiens.

I would also assume such a learned man as yourself would know that the following statement
" So you're saying that since research is being done by everyone from charlatans like Pons"

Is liable and quite actionable. But I suppose your expertise in the law overshadows your expertise in Chemical physics.

"Is that why Pons and co. were run out of town on a rail all those years ago, to linger in the shadows of crank research desperate to prove to the cult that surrounds them, that yes, the truth is out there?"

Hmm so how does the above statement jibe with ....?
"Over the years, a number of groups around the world have reproduced the original Pons-Fleischmann excess heat effect, yielding sometimes as much as 250 percent of the energy put in."

So if I may clarify your position.... These number of other Labrotories around the world are doing "crank research" when they are able to replicate and even exceed the original findings of Pons and Fleischer? How does one do that effectively? I mean reproduce Apparently" fake" Chemical Reactions? Looking forward to that insight from you.

I have further questions about the following also...

"As the gentleman that posted just above very succinctly put it: if it's real, show me the neutrons. As no one has yet to do this, despite what you claim to be fifteen years of rigorous research with nothing to show for it, I'll stand by me reading of the evidence which, regardless of what you may say or think (if you can call it that), has proved fruitless, dead end after deader end."

Why do they have to show YOU the neutrons? I didn't know you might be the arbiter of all scientific knowledge, However I don't keep up on such things as I should. So I do apologize for not recognizing your title.

Furthermore, here is a question.... If this is an act of a charlaton, a con man, a ruse, what would drive people to stake their professional reputations, millions of dollars in research to a process that would as you put it be a dead end? I have seen obsesive compulsive disorders that would cause people to do the same thing over and over when they did not work, But how do you explain 150 scientists from all over the world doing the apparently same failed experiment over and over? Wouldnt you think they would have better use of their time?..... Or might there be a spark in there that they find their, time, money and intellect, worth every moment of time trying to figure out what is happening in this process? Just curious.

Oh yeah and this....

"I'll stand by me reading of the evidence which, regardless of what you may say or think (if you can call it that), has proved fruitless, dead end after deader end.

If you were standing on the beach of kittyhawk north carolina at the turn of the last century and saw a couple of brothers carrying the remains of their broken glider.....what would you have said to them? Keep going you will succeed! or Something like this.... Men weren't made to fly! I'll stand by me reading of the evidence which, regardless of what you may say or think (if you can call it that) Orville Wright your experiment , has proved fruitless, dead end after deader end. Silly flights of fancy those bicycle brothers....

Oh yeah and this gem....

"Till then, I leave you and your cohorts to your flights of fancy, where Big Foot, ET and the perpetual motion machine are all being waylaid by evil sheiks, menacing oil companies and the Illuminati.

Me and my cohorts? Hmmm don't remember having any cohorts. All I did was to ask what your credintials were to make such definitive statements of obvious failure.
I Don't know if cold fusion Or what ever they are observing will lead anywhere, however I am willing for them to try.

Let's play the "what if" game? What if they find a way of converting this process into usable electrical energy? How would that change the world? And if it did would you be bitter about it because you were wrong?

Just curious.




49 posted on 08/31/2004 9:20:00 PM PDT by Walkingfeather (q)
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To: LibWhacker

Not to be confused with CFML


50 posted on 08/31/2004 9:21:45 PM PDT by Conservomax (There are no solutions, only trade-offs.)
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To: Sam the Sham

That is a good observation. Years ago Bell Labs investigated all emergeing technologies because they could. Remember what it cost to make a long distance phone call? The profit from this regulated and monopolistic enterprise gave us many technologies which we use today. Not the least of which are reliable semiconductors, UNIX s/w, and fiber optic telecommunications cable. Without the later technology we would not be doing this right now because the bandwidth would not exist and if we could, the cost would be prohibitive.

BTW, does anybody reading this know of Gene Mallove? He was killed by an alleged prowler at his parents home in NJ. He lived in NH and was an advocate for cold fusion. I do not believe it was an accident. The reason I say this is that he published a magazine devoted to cold fusion and he organized the international convention on cold fusion. His actions kept the idea of cold fusion current. He exposed frauds and reported on potential success stories. If anyone wanted to squelch cold fusion they might start with him. Does anybody believe it indeed was an accident as the official report states that the prowler must have been startled and killed him but they never caught the killer. I guess it was just an accident, not.


51 posted on 08/31/2004 9:44:34 PM PDT by Final Authority
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To: LibWhacker

To my way of thinking, it's a probability problem, pure and simple: Which lines of research are most likely to lead to important advancements? And for that you have to rely on the "scientific establishment" to help you decide. Unfortunately or not, everyone else gets short changed.
////////////////////
the presumption here is that current high energy fusion research is likely to lead to important advancements.

But scratch any high energy fusion researchers and they'll all ssay they at least 20 years off from anything.

on that face of it that looks like slim probabilities for the "respectable" line of research. also that's a lot of dog years in advace for the possibility of something.

so I see no harm in the feds keeping their options open.


52 posted on 08/31/2004 9:45:19 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: Jeff Gordon; SauronOfMordor

53 posted on 08/31/2004 10:01:37 PM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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To: LibWhacker

I'm all for cold fusion research. The U.S. is the most technologically innovative country and there should be more money going to alternative energy research. Anything to reduce oil dependence sounds good to me.


54 posted on 08/31/2004 11:02:48 PM PDT by orangelobster
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To: LibWhacker

If the Navy is indeed working on it ... wow.


55 posted on 08/31/2004 11:53:02 PM PDT by Centurion2000 (Truth, Justice and the Texan Way)
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To: Physicist
Ping!

IIRC, you laid this out rather succinctly last time.

56 posted on 09/01/2004 7:44:25 AM PDT by balrog666 ("One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." -- Heinlein)
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To: LibWhacker

I'll stick with ASP.NET...no wait...wrong Cold Fusion...nevermind.


57 posted on 09/01/2004 7:46:29 AM PDT by dfwgator (It's sad that the news media treats Michael Jackson better than our military.)
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To: Diogenesis
Yes, delta E & delta t are uncertainties but I was only interested in the maximum possible values. Many people think that the HUP will only show what can be observed but it can also be used to show what is and isn't possible under given conditions. HUP is often used in this manner in studies of new trans-uranic elements.

As to part two of your post, yup I left stuff out. It's been years since I looked at it last and I didn't find any thing that substantially altered the "back of the envelope" calculations. X is still much larger than x.

That is not to say cold fusion as a whole is impossible, for instance there is muon catalyzed fusion that would occur at much more reasonable temperatures. I would also recommend looking at the Tesla table top fusion experiments although I classify that as hot fusion myself.
58 posted on 09/01/2004 8:30:43 PM PDT by chmst
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To: LibWhacker
The only debate on this subject has been: How does it works, instead of if it works.

The fact that it does produce more energy has been well documented. The exact physics involved it still open for debate.

Beware of fads like "global warming" and only focus upon the factual information. For some strange reason, the current fad is that cold fusion was a classic example of false science.

I will continue to keep an open mind on the subject and evaluate all factual information submitted on this topic.

59 posted on 09/01/2004 8:40:41 PM PDT by Hunble
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To: ECM
This thing is like a freakin' zombie--you just can't kill it!

Facts are facts. I hope that factual information never gets killed.

60 posted on 09/01/2004 8:43:19 PM PDT by Hunble
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