Nuclear fusion on the desktop ... really! Mini-reactor yields neutrons, could power spacecraft
A key part of the apparatus for the nuclear fusion experiment is in the foreground. In the background are researchers Seth Putterman, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski.
A view inside the crystal-based fusion chamber: "This is an amazing photo," UCLA's Seth Putterman says. "You're actually looking at the tracks of the fusion in the scintillator."
UCLA's Putterman said future experiments will focus on refining the technique for potential commercial uses, including designing portable neutron generators that could be used for oil well drilling or scanning luggage and cargo at airports.
The technology also could conceivably give rise to implantable radiation sources, which could target cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. "You could bring a tiny crystal into the body, place it next to a tumor, turn on the radiation and blast the tumor," Putterman told MSNBC.com.
In the Nature report, Putterman and his colleagues said the crystal-based method could be used in "microthrusters for miniature spacecraft." In such an application, the method would not rely on nuclear fusion for power generation, but rather on ion propulsion, Putterman said.
Physics/science PING
Damn! My bullshit meter is busted!
I thought so!
Hope it's true. Can't help but think about the cold fusion fiasco we had a few years ago.
That simple, huh? How about my cure: like, take the cancer and digitally subtract it using Photoshop. Then send a robot in to zap out all the gray areas, and VOILA! You're cured!
Damn, it even looks like a flux capacitor...
This has the making of a major revolution compared to transitors replacing electron tubes!
All it needs is development! Good job, guys!
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The scintillator.
Outstanding research that could be a breakthrough in new power sources. Sounds like they're sensitive about pissing off the oil industry though.
> ... with the help of crystals no bigger than a sugar cube ...
Finally.
Crystolic fusion.
Will the name Buzz Lightyear be on the patent?
Amazing, they said it doesn't generate as much energy as it takes in, but I'm sure enough engineering could solve that.
Sounds interesting, but very doubtful.
60 year cell phone power source. :') Which means the "batteries" will outlast the phone about fifteen-fold (at least).
And it's not April Fool's Month.
Makes pocket pool obsolete!
Physicists look to crystal device for future of fusion
Mark Peplow, London
Nature 434, 1057 (28 April 2005) | doi: 10.1038/4341057a
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7037/full/4341057a.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7037/pdf/4341057a.pdf
Putterman, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has turned a tiny crystal into a particle accelerator. When its electric field is focused by a tungsten needle, it fires deuterium ions into a target so fast that the colliding nuclei fuse to create a stream of neutrons... Putterman is not claiming to have created a source of virtually unlimited energy, because the reaction isn't self-sustaining... "The amazing thing is that the crystal can be used as an accelerator without plugging it in to a power station," says Putterman. Putterman got the idea when he delivered a lecture on sonoluminescence and energy focusing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Physicist Ahmet Erbil suggested that Putterman should instead consider ferroelectricity.
EU tempts Japan on fusion deal
Posted by NYTexan
On News/Activism 11/16/2004 4:00:01 PM PST · 9 replies · 270+ views
bbcnews ^ | Tuesday, 16 November, 2004, 17:37 GMT
The project is estimated to cost $10bn and will run for 20 years It will produce the first sustained fusion reactions Iter is the final stage before a commercial reactor is built The EU has offered Japan a package of incentives to persuade it to give up its bid to host the world's biggest nuclear fusion reactor. Europe wants to base the reactor at Cadarache in France, while Tokyo favours Rokkasho-Mura, in north Japan. Japan would receive contributions to other fusion research initiatives and other benefits, EU officials said. But Europe said it would press ahead with building the reactor...
Warming Up to Cold Fusion
Posted by Arkie2
On News/Activism 11/20/2004 5:15:08 AM PST · 90 replies · 2,061+ views
The Washington Post ^ | Sharon Weinberger
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...
Japan threatens EU over nuclear fusion site
Posted by Ginifer
On News/Activism 11/20/2004 6:54:45 AM PST · 22 replies · 541+ views
hindustantimes.com ^ | London, November 20, 04 | Reuters
Japan would walk away from a partnership with the EU to build the world's first nuclear fusion reaction if work begins on a site in France without its agreement, Japan's chief negotiator has said. Talks between Tokyo and the European Union over where to build the $12 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) -- which would try to replicate the way the sun generates energy -- ended in deadlock earlier this month. The EU wants the project to be based in Cadarache, near Marseille, while Tokyo is hoping it will be built in Rokkasho, a remote fishing village in northern...
EU 'declaration of war' over fusion
Posted by JeffersonRepublic.com
On News/Activism 11/26/2004 10:58:38 AM PST · 3 replies · 329+ views
guardian.co.uk ^
Japan said today it would continue with its bid to host a global nuclear fusion project and warned the European Union against going ahead without Tokyo. However, EU ministers agreed in Brussels to continue seeking Japan's backing to build the world's first thermonuclear reactor in France - but to go ahead without Tokyo if there was no deal by the end of the year. "It is regrettable that they are talking about taking unilateral action," Satoru Ohtake, director for fusion energy at Science and Technology Ministry, told Reuters. "There is no change in Japan's policy to seek to host the...
Europe and Japan in heated clash over fusion reactor
Posted by Pokey78
On News/Activism 12/11/2004 6:38:23 PM PST · 27 replies · 576+ views
The Observer (U.K.) ^ | 12/12/04 | Robin McKie and Angela Saini
A battle has broken out over plans to build a reactor that could harness 'fusion power', source of the sun's energy, for humanity. European politicians and scientists want to construct a fusion plant in France. But the Japanese are insisting they should be hosts for the £3 billion project. The row has caused a major diplomatic split: the EU, Russia and China want the International Tokamak Experimental Reactor (Iter) to be constructed at Cadarache in France, while the US, South Korea and Japan want to have it at Rokkasho-mura in Japan. The winner is likely to gain expertise in a...
Details about DoE review of cold fusion
Posted by JedRothwell
On News/Activism 01/05/2005 11:33:47 AM PST · 31 replies · 1,121+ views
Department of Energy ^ | December 2004 | LENR-CANR
In December 2004 the Department of Energy, Office of Science, completed its review of cold fusion and published online, "Report of the Review of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions." This was briefly reported in some newpapers and journals. A short statement was published on a DoE website. We have more detailed information, including the complete set of comments from the anonymous scientific reviewers themselves. This is not available at the DoE website. See: http://lenr-canr.org scroll down to the third news item.) The second news item is about a book that I wrote myself. It is the first deliberately amusing book about...
Fusion Redux
Posted by ckilmer
On News/Activism 01/15/2005 9:23:09 AM PST · 26 replies · 700+ views
popularmechanics.com ^ | JIM WILSON
Fusion Redux BY JIM WILSON Photo by Donna Coveney/MIT After being virtually abandoned, fusion power is poised for a comeback. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the stars. For more than 50 years, scientists have been trying to bring that power down to Earth. Fusion generators are appealing because they produce none of the pollutants associated with fossil- and nuclear-fuel power plants. Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Plainsboro, N.J., estimate that a 1000-megawatt nuclear fusion plant would produce about 4 pounds of waste a day, compared to 31,000 tons from a coal-fired plant of a similar...
CONSORTIUM FORMED TO STUDY ACOUSTIC FUSION;
Posted by ckilmer
On News/Activism 01/15/2005 11:02:49 AM PST · 69 replies · 1,116+ views
business wire ^ | January 12, 2005 03:30 PM US EST | The Acoustic Fusion Technology Energy Consortium
January 12, 2005 03:30 PM US EST by The Acoustic Fusion Technology Energy Consortium GRASS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 12, 2005-- CONSORTIUM FORMED TO STUDY ACOUSTIC FUSION; COULD BE ALTERNATIVE TO OIL, GAS, COAL AND NUCLEAR POWER The Acoustic Fusion Technology Energy Consortium (AFTEC) has been formed by leading academic and commercial institutions to research and develop acoustic inertial confinement fusion (AICF) and its related science, technologies, and equipment. AFTEC's five founders are (alphabetically): Boston University; Impulse Devices, Inc.; Purdue University; University of Mississippi; and University of Washington Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound. Dr. Wylene Dunbar, Director of AFTEC, today...
Researchers report bubble fusion results replicated ~ Cold fusion no longer confusion
Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach
On News/Activism 01/25/2005 1:01:04 PM PST · 161 replies · 3,439+ views
The Inquirer UK ^ | Friday 21 January 2005, 08:10 | Nick Farrell:
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...
Nuclear fusion 'put to the test' (sonoluminescence, fusion in a jar)
Posted by Arkie2
On News/Activism 02/18/2005 11:29:31 AM PST · 38 replies · 1,307+ views
BBC ^ | 18 Feb 05 | BBC 2 staff
Nuclear fusion is nature's atomic power It is three years since Professor Rusi Taleyarkhan made the controversial claim that he had achieved one of the holy grails of science - nuclear fusion. Since then, he has grown tired of the scepticism of his fellow scientists. "My lab has been audited, my instruments have been audited, my books have been audited, the data speaks for itself. "The data has to speak for itself - I mean how can I answer that I know absolutely 100% sure that it is what I think it is? I just have to look at the...
Brutal Bubbles: Collapsing orbs rip apart atoms (Sonoluminescence, fusion in a jar)
Posted by Arkie2
On News/Activism 03/04/2005 4:18:17 PM PST · 16 replies · 1,084+ views
Science News online ^ | 4 March 05 | Peter Weiss
Fill a flask with liquid, rattle it with ultrasonic waves, and hellish microcosms can form within the fluid. Tiny gas bubbles swell and then implode with a fury now revealed to be extreme enough to strip electrons from atoms trapped in the collapse. The Illinois chemists who have detected that atomic destruction for the first time have also directly measured temperatures of the imploding bubbles. Some of these register at least 15,000 kelvins, a temperature about three times as hot as the Sun's surface. Researchers have long known that the collapse of ultrasonically generated bubbles emits flashes of lightóa phenomenon...
Temperature inside collapsing bubble four times that of sun (cold fusion, sonoluminescence)
Posted by Arkie2
On News/Activism 03/05/2005 10:02:50 AM PST · 12 replies · 659+ views
Spaceref.com ^ | 3 March 05 | staff
Using a technique employed by astronomers to determine stellar surface temperatures, chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have measured the temperature inside a single, acoustically driven collapsing bubble. Their results seem out of this world. "When bubbles in a liquid get compressed, the insides get hot -- very hot," said Ken Suslick, the Marvin T. Schmidt Professor of Chemistry at Illinois and a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. "Nobody has been able to measure the temperature inside a single collapsing bubble before. The temperature we measured -- about 20,000 degrees Kelvin -- is...
Tiny Bubbles Implode With the Heat of a Star( possible fusion )
Posted by Arkie2
On News/Activism 03/14/2005 7:31:03 PM PST · 19 replies · 954+ views
New York Times ^ | March 15, 2005 | KENNETH CHANG
When the force of sound waves implode tiny bubbles within a liquid at room temperature, the surface of the bubble can reach temperatures at least 25,000 degrees Fahrenheit, more than twice as hot as the surface of the sun, scientists reported this month. The center of such a bubble may be even more astonishingly hot. The scientists, at the University of Illinois, did not speculate just how hot the bubble became, but said they had managed to create a state of matter called plasma inside the bubble. In it, some of the electrons have been stripped off the atoms. "This...
In from the cold (cold fusion heating up again)
Posted by ckilmer
On News/Activism 03/23/2005 9:54:05 PM PST · 27 replies · 772+ views
The Guardian ^ | Thursday March 24, 2005
In from the cold Sixteen years after the hope, hype and recriminations, cold fusion is news again. David Adam investigates a scientific controversy that won't go away Thursday March 24, 2005 The Guardian In the late afternoon of January 24, the academic calm of Japan's Hokkaido University was shattered by an explosion in one of its laboratories. Physicist Tadahiko Mizuno was taking a guest through experiments into a phenomenon called cold fusion. The pair were showered in flying glass, suffering wounds to their face, neck, arms and chest. Mizuno needed a large chunk of detonated scientific apparatus removed from next...
COLD FUSION, THE UNLIMITED ENERGY SOURCE: A MYTH OR REALITY?
Posted by ckilmer
On News/Activism 03/27/2005 10:47:13 PM PST · 22 replies · 557+ views
NigeriaWorld ^ | Sunday, March 27, 2005 | Prof. Sam Ejike Okoye
Prof. Sam Ejike Okoye Sunday, March 27, 2005 advertisement samokoye@hotmail.com London, UK ANNOUNCE THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR FRIENDS COLD FUSION, THE UNLIMITED ENERGY SOURCE: A MYTH OR REALITY? ---------------------------------------- Introduction It was the most notorious scientific experiment in recent memory - in 1989, the two men who claimed to have discovered the energy of the future were condemned as impostors and exiled by their peers. Can it possibly make sense to reopen the cold fusion investigation? A surprising number of researchers have already done so. Almost four stories high, framed in steel beams and tangled in pipes, conduits, cables, and...
Cold fusion
Posted by Arkie2
On News/Activism 03/30/2005 2:14:49 PM PST · 66 replies · 1,376+ views
ZPEnergy ^ | 31 Mar 05 | Sam Okoye
It was the most notorious scientific experiment in recent memory - in 1989, the two men who claimed to have discovered the energy of the future were condemned as impostors and exiled by their peers. Can it possibly make sense to reopen the cold fusion investigation? A surprising number of researchers have already done so. Almost four stories high, framed in steel beams and tangled in pipes, conduits, cables, and coils, the Joint European Torus (JET) claims to be the largest fusion power experiment in the world. Located in Abingdon, near Oxford, England, JET is a monument to big science,...
Lockheed Martin Orincon Data Fusion Technology Best Available ( DD(X) )
Posted by Righty_McRight
On News/Activism 04/01/2005 2:12:48 PM PST · 3 replies · 258+ views
Lockheed Martin ^ | April 1, 2005 | Lockheed Martin
SAN DIEGO, CA., April 1, 2005 -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] tracking and fusion technologies proved to be the best available following a series of elite government-sponsored simulations for the Navyís future surface combatant ship, DD(X). Three companies were invited by the U.S. Government to participate in an Integrated Tactical Picture (ITP) Prototype Trade Study to evaluate advanced data fusion technologies to fuse multi-source tactical and operational data generated by onboard and off-board sensors. In this evaluation, data from various sensor sources were correlated and fused by fusion engines into system tracks. The competition required competitors to track aircraft, ships,...
UCLA Researchers Produce Nuclear Fusion
Posted by AntiGuv
On News/Activism 04/27/2005 12:18:08 PM PDT · 74 replies · 1,305+ views
Associated Press ^ | April 27, 2005 | Alicia Chang
LOS ANGELES - A tabletop experiment created nuclear fusion ó long seen as a possible clean energy solution ó under lab conditions, scientists reported. But the amount of energy produced was too little to be seen as a breakthrough in solving the world's energy needs For years, scientists have sought to harness controllable nuclear fusion, the same power that lights the sun and stars. This latest experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While falling short as a way to produce energy, the method could have potential uses in the oil-drilling industry and homeland security,...
Nuclear fusion on the desktop ... really! Mini-reactor yields neutrons, could power spacecraft
Posted by Arkie2
On News/Activism 04/27/2005 12:48:24 PM PDT · 2 replies · 530+ views
MSN ^ | April 27, 2005 | staff
Scientists say they have achieved small-scale nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment, using tried and true techniques that are expected to generate far less controversy than past such claims. This latest experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While the energy created was too small to harness cheap fusion power, the technique could have potential uses in medicine, spacecraft propulsion, the oil drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles. Putterman and his colleagues at UCLA, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski, report their results in...
Scientists put the Sun in our pockets (nuclear fusion using crystals)
Posted by FairOpinion
On News/Activism 04/27/2005 8:30:27 PM PDT · 42 replies · 617+ views
UK Telegraph ^ | Apr. 28, 2005 | Roger Highfield
A pocket-sized device which can harness fusion, the energy source of the Sun, with the help of crystals no bigger than a sugar cube has been developed by scientists. The "pocket fusion" device, described today in the journal Nature, raises new possibilities in fields as diverse as space propulsion, medical diagnostics, cancer treatment and the hunt for concealed weapons. Now Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski, a professor from Glasgow, and Prof Seth Putterman of the University of California, Los Angeles describe a breathtakingly simple way to fuse atoms with the help of a crystal. They fused atoms of deuterium - heavy...