Posted on 05/27/2008 1:35:26 PM PDT by Red Badger
On May 22, researchers at Osaka University presented the first demonstration of cold fusion since an unsuccessful attempt in 1989 that has clouded the field to this day.
To many people, cold fusion sounds too good to be true. The idea is that, by creating nuclear fusion at room temperature, researchers can generate a nearly unlimited source of power that uses water as fuel and produces almost zero waste. Essentially, cold fusion would make oil obsolete.
However, many experts debate whether money should be spent on cold fusion research or applied to more realistic alternative energy solutions. For decades, researchers around the world have been simply trying to show that cold fusion is indeed possible, but they´ve yet to take that important first step.
Now, esteemed Physics Professor Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University in Japan claims to have made the first successful demonstration of cold fusion. Last Thursday, May 22, Arata and his colleague Yue-Chang Zhang of Shianghai Jiotong University presented the cold fusion demonstration to 60 onlookers, including other physicists, as well as reporters from six major newspapers and two TV studios. If Arata and Zhang´s demonstration is real, it could lead to a future of new, clean, and cheap energy generation.
In their experiment, the physicists forced deuterium gas into a cell containing a mixture of palladium and zirconium oxide, which absorbed the deuterium to produce a dense "pynco" deuterium. In this dense state, the deuterium nuclei from different atoms were so close together that they fused to produce helium nuclei.
Evidence for the occurrence of this fusion came from measuring the temperature inside the cell. When Arata first injected the deuterium gas, the temperature rose to about 70° C (158° F), which Arata explained was due to nuclear and chemical reactions. When he turned the gas off, the temperature inside the cell remained warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours, which Arata said was an effect of nuclear fusion.
While Arata´s demonstration looked promising to his audience, the real test is still to come: duplication. Many scientists and others are now recalling the infamous 1989 demonstration by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, who claimed to produce controlled nuclear fusion in a glass jar at room temperature. However, no one - including Fleischmann and Pons - could duplicate the experiment, leading many people to consider cold fusion a pseudoscience to this day.
But one witness at the recent demonstration, physicist Akito Takahashi of Osaka University, thought that the experiment should be able to be repeated.
"Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy [heat] from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi told New Energy Times. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers [J. High Temp. Soc. Jpn, Feb. and March issues, 2008]. This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."
In addition, researchers will have to repeat the experiment with larger amounts of the palladium and zirconium oxide mixture in order to generate larger quantities of energy.
via: Physics World and New Energy Times
This looks good. Really good. I would bet the oil companies will do everything in their power to stop this if it is true. They are making a killing now and don't want to stop any time soon.
Suppose this was not, in fact, cold fusion, but a different, heretofore unknown, process that achieved the same goal. It is still worthy of study and research.................
Do you think the first experiment back in ‘89 was a hoax?
GOOD ONE!!..............
Ping
They may have discovered something akin to cold fusion, but of a different nature. That is worthy of research and further investigations............
No matter what they say about the original, from what I hear, Pons and Fleischmann are about as close to perfect you can get when it comes to measuring the thermodynamic ins and outs.
If they say more energy came out than what went in, you can pretty much bank on it.
bump for later read
We don't need to reach that far when there are several well-known catalytic reactions unaccounted for.
Drop some lye, a beer can and about one quart of water in an ice bucket and see what happens in the next two days.
If this were in fact fusion we would have to keep fission reactors going just to produce heavy water.
Thanks
“Bridge for Sale!! Bridge for Sale!!”
I’m not a physicist, but I seem to recall that many seemingly “impossible” phenomena occur by quantum tunneling. I wonder if that could also be a theoretical mechanism for cold fusion to occur. Any physicists on FR to comment?
In any event, if it is confirmed that Helium is being produced from Deuterium, then fusion is really going on.
I am also reminded of Rupert Sheldrake’s seemingly outlandish theory that nature has habits rather than laws. The strongest habits of nature just appear to us to be laws.
Is it possible that nature is in the process of acquiring the new habit of cold fusion?
Not deliberate, to give the benefit of being mistaken rather than being outright charlatans. They were mistaken and wanted to see that result, so they saw it. It's not the first time somebody saw what they wanted to see even though something else is what happened.
Absolutely correct. I wonder what the general reaction would have been in 1908 if someone made the claim that a small bomb could not only destroy an entire city, but also leave it uninhabitable for decades or centuries? Those who sneer and jeer at every difficult concept today are the ones who wind up as the boobs on tomorrow’s documentaries. Not every concept works out but somehow our science does keep marching forward.
MM
The fuel is cheap as hell by comparison to oil or even plutonium. Fusion byproducts are usually a lot less radioactive as well.
I wonder if they got any radioactive byproducts?
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