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Nuclear fusion 'put to the test' (sonoluminescence, fusion in a jar)
BBC ^ | 18 Feb 05 | BBC 2 staff

Posted on 02/18/2005 11:29:31 AM PST by Arkie2

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This looks like cold fusion 2 but I wondered what the tech crowd at FR has to say about this. I saw the program and sonoluminescence is fascinating whether it produces fusion or not.
1 posted on 02/18/2005 11:29:38 AM PST by Arkie2
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To: Arkie2

Purdue and RPI have both achieved this. RPI was second, but had better instruments.

It is not technically cold fusion. The collapsing bubble creates a high temperature and pressure spot, but it is small enough that it doesn't provide enough boom to destroy the can.

They used deuterinated acetone as the working fluid. That is standard acetone chemically, but with the standard single proton hydrogen replaced with deuterium, a proton and a neutron. As the bubbles form in the low pressure region of the sound wave the acetone evaporates, then in the high pressure region the bubbles collapse.

It acts a bit like the military shaped charges, with the edges of the bubble adding vectorally. The tiny center of the collapsed bubble is hit with neutrons while at high pressure and temperature, and you get helium (two protons and one neutron) out with a bit of energy.

Helium will not stay bonded to the rest of the acetone, so you have a tendency of the acetone to poison itself after operating for a bit.

Some folks are working on turning this into a powerplant. The previous cold fusion work (in Utah) was a rediscovery of the Alverez effect.


2 posted on 02/18/2005 11:40:24 AM PST by donmeaker (Burn the UN flag publicly.)
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To: Arkie2
until then, the claim will attract great scepticism from the wider scientific community

in other words, until others can get a claim and fame on the discovery - it won't be recognized.

It seems that the pioneers are always crucified

3 posted on 02/18/2005 11:41:41 AM PST by maine-iac7 (."...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time" LINCOLN)
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To: donmeaker; Arkie2; Boot Hill

There is a claim of a process that goes beyond this, and their is a company seeking capital to exploit both. Some question whether they are nothing more than a scam however.

I have lost the details but boot hill may remember.


4 posted on 02/18/2005 11:44:17 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: All; Boot Hill
keyword search found it:

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

5 posted on 02/18/2005 11:46:18 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: Arkie2
Here is a useful overview of what's involved. Interestingly, it may be linked to the phenomenon of Wint-O-Green Life Savers giving off flashes of light when chewed.
6 posted on 02/18/2005 11:58:47 AM PST by SedVictaCatoni (<><)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Thanks for the link. The team mentioned in this article as having replicated the results is the same team led by Taleyharkin who claimed to have detected fusion in 2002. The BBC team sponsored an attempt to replicate the experiment and reported that there was absolutely no evidence of fusion.

So, the beat goes on. This appears to be cousin to the cold fusion debate. Until the results can be replicated in other labs there's not much here in my opinion but I wanted other's opinions.


7 posted on 02/18/2005 12:02:22 PM PST by Arkie2
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To: Arkie2
As a bubble collapses, if it has any spin on it (and it will), conservation of angular momentum should cause the contents of the bubble to accelerate. I wonder if sonoluminescence might be energy released to keep the bubbles' atoms from exceeding c.

Just a WAG, but it would be interesting to know if sonoluminescence varies with latitude.

8 posted on 02/18/2005 12:14:33 PM PST by Grut
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To: Arkie2
It would be clean, last for ever and create no long-term nuclear waste.

Question -- I wonder if my minor quibble with the use of the word "clean" in this context is justified: If fusion reactions blast out high-energy neutrons, perhaps the MSM should be dissuaded from calling it "clean" energy? Laymen are going to get the idea that clean means "safe." In fact, I've seen some pretty wild futuristic claims about cold fusion, e.g., where everything from wrist watches, to blenders, to automobiles, to nuclear submarines would all have their own little cold fusion nuclear power plant onboard, and big centralized power plants run by big utility companies would be a thing of the past. But I think these claims neglect the spray of neutrons you'd get out such devices . . . Or am I wrong about that?

10 posted on 02/18/2005 12:23:31 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: jasoncann

If the set up is this simple, you'd think the experiment would be reproduced (or fail at being reprodueded)immediately all over the world, and the controversy would not be dragged out for years.


11 posted on 02/18/2005 12:30:01 PM PST by Plutarch
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To: Plutarch

I saw stuff like this in a corner of the accelerator lab at BYU in the early 90s. It's kind of neato, but there's a big jump from random collapse to controlled generation. Although, I wonder if something like a laser might be acheived here...


12 posted on 02/18/2005 12:36:08 PM PST by Technocrat
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Comment #13 Removed by Moderator

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
"When they repeated the experiment, they couldn't find any evidence of fusion."

Rule #1:   The essence of scientific experimentation is that the experiment be replicable by others.

"The data speaks for itself."

Rule #2:   Data never speaks for itself.

"US government made some research funds available...to turn their star in a jar into fusion...Rusi Taleyarkhan got there first."

Rule #3:   The glare of light reflecting from gold can sometimes blind even the keenest eye.

Bottom line here, EATB, is even if this sonoluminescence is eventually shown to produce fusion, it is producing it in such minute amounts that the resulting neutron flux is masked by the very tiny amounts of background (natural) neutron radiation.

--Boot Hill

14 posted on 02/18/2005 12:48:39 PM PST by Boot Hill ("...and Josuha went unto him and said: art thou for us, or for our adversaries?")
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To: LibWhacker
"Or am I wrong about that?"

No, your BS detector is working just fine.

--Boot Hill

15 posted on 02/18/2005 12:51:10 PM PST by Boot Hill ("...and Josuha went unto him and said: art thou for us, or for our adversaries?")
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To: LibWhacker

I always wondered about that too. The nuetrons can irradiate objects, can't they?

Of course, I imagine they're easily contained in the (hypothetical) retaining walls of a powerplant.


16 posted on 02/18/2005 12:58:21 PM PST by ruiner
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To: Boot Hill

If it produces energy in tiny amounts, that could still be significant, because it could presumably be done on a larger scale.

I say presumably because their could be engineering or containment problems. But usually those sorts of problems are soluble.

As for the pollution question, neutrons are not a problem except possibly up close when they are moving very fast. So it's doubtful that you would power a wristwatch this way. But you would produce clean, cheap electric power that could charge batteries, charge hydrogen cells, and power the national electrical grid.

Hydrogen cells are totally useless as a source of "alternative" energy unless you find a clean, non-fossil method of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen. Using electricity from coal, oil, or natural gas fired power plants to produce hydrogen is worthless.


17 posted on 02/18/2005 1:46:03 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero
"If it produces energy in tiny amounts, that could still be significant, because it could presumably be done on a larger scale."

Inefficient is inefficient, irrespective of the scale.

"...neutrons are not a problem except possibly up close when they are moving very fast."

What happens to an atom that absorbs one of those very fast neutrons? It becomes a radio-isotope.

--Boot Hill

18 posted on 02/18/2005 3:15:20 PM PST by Boot Hill ("...and Josuha went unto him and said: art thou for us, or for our adversaries?")
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To: Arkie2

Read later ping.


19 posted on 02/18/2005 6:54:21 PM PST by Kevin OMalley (No, not Freeper#95235, Freeper #1165: Charter member, What Was My Login Club.)
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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