Researchers report bubble fusion results replicated ~ Cold fusion no longer confusion

The Inquirer UK ^ | Friday 21 January 2005, 08:10 | Nick Farrell:

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

BOFFINS FROM the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) have managed to replicate controversial cold fusion experiments.

A March 2002 an article in Science (Vol. 295, March 2002), indicated that boffins had managed to use bubble fusion successfully, but this data was questioned because it was made with imprecise instrumentation.

Now Physical Review E is publishing an article by the team of researchers stating that it has replicated and extended previous experimental results and this time has used the right instruments. Cold fusion is a bit of a holy grail in the science world because if it could be made to work, it could produce a lot of energy without having to have a large amount of energy to start it.

Scientists have managed to do it in the past, but it always required more energy to be put into it than could be taken out, which is defeating the point a bit. A press release going into the details can be found here. µ

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Lots of work to be done to see if something useful can come from this phenomena, but it is an amazing achievement.

[expatpat]

Well, in a sense you are doing -- you are converting mass into energy.

[ArGee]

In other words, once started, no more energy in needed to keep it going. (perpetual energy)

Not precisely. You need to feed it. And, as someone pointed out, the value of the system lies in the ease or difficulty of getting your hands on the fuel.

Shalom.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Too good to be true???? maybe - but I still have a gut feeling that something happened then and there

I agree.

[Poohbah]

In other words, once started, no more energy in needed to keep it going. (perpetual energy)

You still need fuel.

[Yo-Yo]

[expatpat]

It was created when some being said "Let there be light", and a vast quantity of high-energy photons were created in the big bang that started the universe.

[ArGee]

If this is cold fusion, I boggle at the idea of hot fusion.

I think it's called "cold fusion" because you don't need to generate a high temperature to start the process, not that you can hold the reaction in the palm of your hand. It's true that the sonic shock wave generates a very high temperature, but the sonic waves themselves are cold.

One important question is, can a sustained reaction dissipate heat sufficiently to allow it to be contained anywhere?

Shalom.

[jpsb]

"but it is an amazing achievement."

Quite possibily the greatest achievement in the history of science. Free clean, energy would be a hard act to follow. Hope this is for real.

[N3WBI3]

You are assuming that matter did not contain stored energy? In fact at the quantum level are not matter and energy far more linked than discreet particle theory indicate?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ROFL!

Now you are starting a rumor.

[rface]

some of the history of the Fleischman and Pons experiments:
Cold Fusion -- The Sun in a bottle

[MineralMan]

"But the matter you are destroying in the process was not created in an energy vaccume..

"

True enough. However, the attraction for fusion technology is that the energy created is potentially so large that it would overwhelm the energy needed to cause the reaction, including the energy needed to obtain enough tritium or deuterium.

When we're dealing with either fusion or fission energy, we're talking about an entire new level of energy production. Early experimentation will, of course, require more energy as input than will be produced, but the potential is there for vastly more energy to be produced than required.

When you're dealing with E=MC2, you're not dealing with normal kinetic or thermal energy levels. That's why nuclear power plants are so cool. Once you have the fuel and get the reaction going, it's self-sustaining. The biggest problem is keeping it from running away and producing lots more energy than you can harvest. Fusion should do the same thing, even though it requires a modest amount of energy to initiate and continue the reaction.

So far, we haven't done so well with it. This technology, if proven, will be pretty interesting, since the fluid used can also control the reaction. Very interesting...again, if proven feasible.

[July 4th]

One boffin typically gets very little of the other boffin.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Another example of where British slang (boffin) is quite different from American slang (boffin')....



Don't forget Buffin!

[GOPJ]

The wall, the wall. What contains this?

...and accompanying temperatures of about 100 million Kelvin

[Maceman]

Well, according to this article from the Washington Post, the government may be considering a second look.

[expatpat]

Matter is indeed stored energy, from the big bang, but we don't have to put it in now. That's why I said "in a sense". If you like we are getting a little bit of the energy back that was stored as matter in the Big Bang "Let there be light".
But it's different energy from energy we have to provide here and now.

[expatpat]

Oh, don't be so sure. I used to be a boffin and I got a lot of boffin'. Einstein was supposedly a bit of a sex maniac.