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Warming Up to Cold Fusion
The Washington Post ^ | Sharon Weinberger

Posted on 11/20/2004 5:15:08 AM PST by Arkie2

On a quiet Monday in late August -- a time of year when much of the Washington bureaucracy has gone to the beach -- a panel of scientists gathered at a Doubletree Hotel set between the Congressional Plaza strip mall and a drab concrete office building on Rockville Pike. The panel's charge was simple: to determine whether that idea had even a prayer of a chance at working. The Department of Energy went to great lengths to cloak the meeting from public view. No announcement, no reporters. None of the names of the people attending that day was disclosed. The DOE made sure to inform the panel's members that they were to provide their conclusions individually rather than as a group, which under a loophole in federal law allowed the agency to close the meeting to the public.

At 9:30 a.m., six presenters were invited in and instructed to sit in a row of chairs along the wall. The group included a prominent MIT physicist, a Navy researcher and four other scientists from Russia, Italy and the United States. They had waited a long time for this opportunity and, one by one, stood up to speak about a scientific idea they had been pursuing for more than a decade.

All the secrecy likely had little to do with national security and more to do with avoiding possible embarrassment to the agency. To some, the meeting would seem no less outrageous than if the DOE honchos had convened for a seance to raise the dead -- and in a way, they had: Fifteen years ago, the DOE held a very similar review of the very same idea.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Technical
KEYWORDS: coldfusion; energy; fusion
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A little light Saturday morning reading. The DOE is currently reviewing Cold Fusion research and is due out with the result soon. This is a fairly long readbut interesting
1 posted on 11/20/2004 5:15:08 AM PST by Arkie2
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To: Arkie2
"This is a fairly long readbut interesting"

I think I'll wait till the WP posts the shorter version with more pictures, LOL. Just kidding.

2 posted on 11/20/2004 5:25:34 AM PST by Oblongata
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To: Arkie2

If Cold Fusion ever becomes viable, the Environmentalists will come out against it. Why? Because it will permit the Western world to continue in our comfortable, affluent ways. They'll hate that.


3 posted on 11/20/2004 5:28:01 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (The fourth estate is a fifth column.)
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To: Arkie2

This country really needs to get ahead of the game on alternative energy sources.


4 posted on 11/20/2004 5:29:48 AM PST by cripplecreek (I come swinging the olive branch of peace.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Personally I think the DOE will put the nail in the coffin of cold fusion but if the Feds even hint some of the research needs further review all bets are off.


5 posted on 11/20/2004 5:31:59 AM PST by Arkie2
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To: Arkie2
I really hope they can figure out what the real dynamics are that allow this experiment to work only in random and rare circumstances. It seems they are so close but yet not really understanding the truth behind the result. It really makes it hard for the research to be taken seriously. I know thy must feel like they have a singing frog.


6 posted on 11/20/2004 5:32:27 AM PST by UseYourHead (Smith & Wesson: The original point-and-click interface)
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To: Arkie2

so the bottom line? is it gonna happen soon or no? :)


7 posted on 11/20/2004 5:37:27 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: Arkie2

Cool article. Thanks for posting it.


8 posted on 11/20/2004 5:38:26 AM PST by syriacus (Who wanted Margaret Hassan murdered? What did she know about the oil-for-food scandal.)
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To: SoFloFreeper

Well, the DOE report is due out before the end of the year. Is that your question?


9 posted on 11/20/2004 5:39:41 AM PST by Arkie2
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To: Arkie2

Finding new energy sources is far less important than protecting the reputations of all those bloated professors who publicly claimed that cold fusion is impossible.


10 posted on 11/20/2004 5:47:18 AM PST by Seruzawa (If you agree with the French raise your hand - If you are French raise both hands.)
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To: Arkie2

What kind of fundamental breakthroughs has the physics community achieved since quantum mechanics? We're still using chemical rockets to lauch space craft. These were invented in the 50s and rely on much earlier principles. I think physics is in a slump. String theory is just a bunch of math piled on top of math. These particle accelerators generate new particles but it seems that it's all just taxonomy.


11 posted on 11/20/2004 5:47:40 AM PST by Odyssey-x
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To: Seruzawa

Even the top experimenters in the cold fusion field admit they have real difficulty in reproducing their results. If the experimenters can't get past that barrier there's no science there.


12 posted on 11/20/2004 5:49:55 AM PST by Arkie2
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To: Arkie2
One could argue that the existence of the DOE is unconstitutional, but this meeting is nothing the DOE should be ashamed of. It can easily be justified by their mission statement:

Hotlinked from:http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?BT_CODE=ABOUTDOE

13 posted on 11/20/2004 5:56:36 AM PST by e_engineer
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I have a degree in physics (don't work in the field), and this is pretty far from my speciality. With that caveat, I don't understand what all the secrecy and hoopla is about. From a brief review of what has passed for 'cold fusion' in the recent past, I don't think there is a lot there...it was sloppy science at the very least in that it was not replicable. Perhaps hoax, perhaps mistake, perhaps there was some unknown variable that we haven't accounted for.

However, that does not mean that it CANNOT happen. I don't think anyone wants to stop all cancer research because we have not found a cure for cancer yet. Nor is all cancer research opposed because some quack holistic energy healer claims to have a cure. Cold fusion may or may not be possible. Let's look into it. If there are serious scientists with serious ideas on how we might better understand fusion I see no reason why their science shouldn't be considered as relevant as any other funding grant.

Chemistry is full of examples of two compounds that won't react, but in the presence of certain conditions and catalysts will react. Obviously the forces involved are fundamentally different, but I think the idea that there is some catalyst and conditions that could allow the energy barriers between protons to be overcome other than massive energy is not inconceivable. I have no idea what they might be, but I think it foolish to be unwilling to consider the idea.


14 posted on 11/20/2004 5:58:20 AM PST by blanknoone (The last time the Dems seceded it was to keep blacks as slaves.)
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To: e_engineer

I don't think the DOE is necessarily embarrased by this because I saw a press release some months ago saying they planned to review the results. I think the embarrasement spoken about in the article is in the mind of the writer.


15 posted on 11/20/2004 5:59:35 AM PST by Arkie2
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To: syriacus
50,000 hours of experiments, he says, he has recorded 50 times when the setup "unmistakably" produced excess heat.

I wish this had been worded differently, because it leaves the impression that 50 out of 50,000 experiments have produced successful results.

Was the author too lazy to find out how many times the experiment has been performed or did the author purposely tinker with words in order to give a negative impression?

It would be more meaningful to know how many times the experiments have been run.

I don't care about the number of hours of experimentation.

16 posted on 11/20/2004 6:00:47 AM PST by syriacus (Who wanted Margaret Hassan murdered? What did she know about the oil-for-food scandal.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

I think you're on to something.


17 posted on 11/20/2004 6:05:38 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: Arkie2
This article looked cool, till I read this part on page 2:

"(the blast had nothing to do with fusion; hydrogen mixed with oxygen, creating the equivalent of rocket fuel)."

I didn't know water was explosive, and it would make a pretty heavy rocket fuel.

18 posted on 11/20/2004 6:07:37 AM PST by Oblongata
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To: Arkie2
Just a thought ( I'm not competent to make a scientific comment ! ): A parallel situation existed in archaeology,with a hard-core scientific "establishment" insisting there could not possibly have been "pre-Clovis" humans living in North America.

This establishment ridiculed, and attempted to ruin anyone who presented hard evidence that disproved their conclusions.( Some of them are still balking,years later !)

Yesterday's "established scientific truth" has a way of becoming tomorrow's discarded notion,and it only makes sense to re-check the evidence.

19 posted on 11/20/2004 6:09:46 AM PST by genefromjersey (So much to flame;so little time !)
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To: genefromjersey

I know what you're saying is true. I hope cold fusion gets some vindication and respectability but even the people involved in the field say the experimental record isn't good.


20 posted on 11/20/2004 6:12:07 AM PST by Arkie2
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