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Cold Fusion Back From The Dead
misterfusion writes "Looks like the IEEE is warming up to cold fusion with the latest story "Cold Fusion Back from the Dead". This has been a good year for this field with several leading science journals (Physics Today, MIT Technology Review, etc) contributing stories. Things are warming up and if science Research & Development funding can be stimulated with a positive DoE report (due soon), it might be an interesting rebirth."
I thought the article was referring to Macromedia Coldfusion!
Phew!
You guys could've fit at least ONE MORE "warming up" pun in the summary. It's like you weren't even trying!
Given the history of cold fusion, the Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. notice seemed strangely appropriate. :)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Apart from the fact that there were problems reproducing the cold fusion effects, it's very easy to see why cold fusion has always been given the cold shoulder. It would effectively end the fission power-based business aswell as fossil fuel generated electricity.
Patriotism - the last resort of scoundrels.
...apologies to the pioneers of cold fusion, like Pons and Fleischman? Seems to me like a positive finding in a DoE report would at least be some verification that they might deserve one.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Waffle waffle
Cold fusion regarded as a joke for ages
waffle waffle
"THE FIRST HINT that the tide may be changing came in February 2002, when the U.S. Navy revealed that its researchers had been studying cold fusion on the quiet more or less continuously since the debacle began. "
waffle waffle
"At San Diego and other research centers, scientists built up an impressive body of evidence that something strange happened when a current passed through palladium electrodes placed in heavy water. "
waffle waffle
"Other researchers are finally beginning to explain why the Pons-Fleischmann effect has been difficult to reproduce. Mike McKubre from SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is influential among those pursuing cold fusion, says that the effect can be reliably seen only once the palladium electrodes are packed with deuterium at ratios of 100 percent--one deuterium atom for every palladium atom. His work shows that if the ratio drops by as little as 10 points, to 90 percent, only 2 experimental runs in 12 produce excess heat, while all runs at a ratio of 100 percent produce excess heat. "
Summary: Cold fusion wasn't reproducible because not all factors were accounted for, and millitary scientists think they nailed it.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Cold Fusion Back From the Dead
U.S. Energy Department gives true believers a new hearing
Later this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive a report from a panel of experts on the prospects for cold fusion - the supposed generation of thermonuclear energy using tabletop apparatus. It's an extraordinary reversal of fortune: more than a few heads turned earlier this year when James Decker, the deputy director of the DOE's Office of Science, announced that he was initiating the review of cold fusion science. Back in November 1989, it had been the department's own investigation that determined the evidence behind cold fusion was unconvincing. Clearly, something important has changed to grab the department's attention now.
The cold fusion story began at a now infamous press conference in March 1989. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, both electrochemists working at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, announced that they had created fusion using a battery connected to palladium electrodes immersed in a bath of water in which the hydrogen was replaced with its isotope deuterium - so-called heavy water. With this claim came the idea that tabletop fusion could produce more or less unlimited, low-cost, clean energy.
In physicists' traditional view of fusion, forcing two deuterium nuclei close enough together to allow them to fuse usually requires temperatures of tens of millions of degrees Celsius. The claim that it could be done at room temperature with a couple of electrodes connected to a battery stretched credulity [see photo, "Too Good to Be True?"].
But while some scientists reported being able to reproduce the result sporadically, many others reported negative results, and cold fusion soon took on the stigma of junk science.
Today the mainstream view is that champions of cold fusion are little better than purveyors of snake oil and good luck charms. Critics say that the extravagant claims behind cold fusion need to be backed with exceptionally strong evidence, and that such evidence simply has not materialized. "To my knowledge, nothing has changed that makes cold fusion worth a second look," says Steven Koonin, a member of the panel that evaluated cold fusion for the DOE back in 1989, who is now chief scientist at BP, the London-based energy company.
Because of such attitudes, science has all but ignored the phenomenon for 15 years. But a small group of dedicated researchers have continued to investigate it. For them, the DOE's change of heart is a crucial step toward being accepted back into the scientific fold. Behind the scenes, scientists in many countries, but particularly in the United States, Japan, and Italy, have been working quietly for more than a decade to understand the science behind cold fusion. (Today they call it low-energy nuclear reactions, or sometimes chemically assisted nuclear reactions.) For them, the department's change of heart is simply a recognition of what they have said all along - whatever cold fusion may be, it needs explaining by the proper process of science.
THE FIRST HINT that the tide may be changing came in February 2002, when the U.S. Navy revealed that its researchers had been studying cold fusion on the quiet more or less continuously since the debacle began. Much of this work was carried out at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, where the idea of generating energy from sea water - a good source of heavy water - may have seemed more captivating than at other laboratories.
Many researchers at the center had worked with Fleischmann, a well-respected electrochemist, and found it hard to believe that he was completely mistaken. What's more, the Navy encouraged a culture of risk-taking in research and made available small amounts of funding for researchers to pursue their own interests.
At San Diego and other research centers, scientists built up an impressive body of evidence that something strange happened when a current passed through palladium electrodes placed in h
In the next Slashdot story perpetual motion is shown to be possible.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
It is good to finally see a fair balance in the study of this idea. It may not generate anything usable, but then agin, it might. I think that is the key... to get real science studying the situation, not having the ideas tested and approved through the media.
With ITER in a political freeze, there is ample time to study cold fusion concepts further. I don't see how one can create fusion conditions at room temperature. But if we understand how to control the collisions of the atoms better, then we may lower ignition temperatures. If the temperatures required were only several tens of thousands of degrees, then we do away with the complex containment systems and have a very viable energy source without multi billion dollar energy stations.
Bottom line: Let real science work. The worst case scenario is that we have a better understanding of the atomic interactions that will be used in whatever fusion reaction processes that we eventually use.
Heh... Cold Fusion Back From The Dead is almost as good as Stealing Fire from the Gods
From the article it seems like Fleischmann saw more energy coming out than he put in (up to 250% apparently) and thought to himself:
"Aha! This must be cold fusion."
Is it just me, or does that seem to be a bit of a leap of faith? After all, if one sets light to petrol one gets more energy out than a match puts in. Surely there are other possibilities.
Occam's razor anyone?
I'm not sure about "strong evidence" from a single research laboratory either...
Over the years, a number of groups around the world have reproduced the original Pons-Fleischmann excess heat effect, yielding sometimes as much as 250 percent of the energy put in.
(snip)
Other researchers are finally beginning to explain why the Pons-Fleischmann effect has been difficult to reproduce. Mike McKubre from SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is influential among those pursuing cold fusion, says that the effect can be reliably seen only once the palladium electrodes are packed with deuterium at ratios of 100 percent--one deuterium atom for every palladium atom. His work shows that if the ratio drops by as little as 10 points, to 90 percent, only 2 experimental runs in 12 produce excess heat, while all runs at a ratio of 100 percent produce excess heat.
Something is going on here that we don't understand, and it looks like it can be reproduced. Yeah I would say it would be worth looking into further. The 250% heat output sounds like a good thing (especially if no toxic by-products are produced) so how does that compare to other types of heat generation I wonder?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Yeah. Physically impossible. It would be cool if you could just, oh, 'tunnel' through the barrier or something, but that would be absurd...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Oh, shit! This again and again.
Cold fusion is impossible and Physics have long demostrated it.
Robert L. Park, the President of the American Physical Society, wrote a book that deals with this and explains it clearly: Voodoo Science. He will probably treat this "rebirth" of the hype on his What's new science column.
How long until the USA Government understands they cannot beat the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
1) The research will only go forward with more funding 2) SRI International is involved ("No, really, Uri Geller *is* a psychic!") 3) "Mike McKubre from SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is influential among those pursuing cold fusion" is not the same as "Mike McKubre, a respected researched who is also working on cold fusion" 4) It's an election year and DOE, hardly a bastion of good science under Bush, is about to announce Cold Fusion is workable at a time of record world oil prices?
Pons and Fleischmann, the original perpertrators of Cold Fusion, were from the University of Utah.
What's the bet that this "re-birth" of Cold Fusion has something to do with SCO?
Judge: Mr McBride, do you have anything to say before the jury adjourn to find you guilty and sentence you to death by stoning?
Darl: Look! Excess neutrons!
Jugde: Where? [Looks away]
Darl: [Exit, stage left]
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
While apparently hard (but not impossible) to reproduce, and not well understood, there is now credible evidence that something happens that generates heat and helium out of hydrogen.
If the phenomenon is real, and we manage to reproduce it reliably, it probably is fusion, albeit only a couple of atoms at a time (which has the side effects of (1) no harder-to-control chain reaction over vast amounts of fissible material and (2) trivial to contain generation).
Might not be too easy to use, though. I could see how the heat could be made to give energy to a conventional steam turbine though.
At any rate, your quip about dead from radiation poisoning is a strawman. Even if all is as the researchers hope, we are observing the fission of minuscule amounts of atoms at a time (hence the manageable heat) and what little radiation escapes from the reaction medium unabsorbed and unconverted into heat is most likely unmeasurably small and completely drowned out by the background radiation we live in.
-- MG
The article is a good look at the whole CF phenomenon as of 1993.
But if it were fusion that were doing it, the researchers would be dead from radiation poisoning.
What is with this idiotic groupthink that if its nuclear it must be radioactive? Not everything involving a nucleus is radioactive, and not everything radioactive causes cancer and kills people. For example, at princeton plasma physics labs, they deal a lot with fusion experiments, and there is radiation present... FROM THE TRITIUM AND DEUTERIUM THAT THEY STARTED WITH. The beginning materials in this case are radioactive. It's all this kneejerking nonsense about radiation that makes people pissy every time you try to discuss fusion research with a layman.
And for the record, until I see better results otherwise, I still think cold fusion is horseshit
Tritium is a byproduct of the reaction, not a required fuel source. What they need it deuterium. Also moderately expensive to produce, though.
The article blurb referred to Technology Review as a "leading science journal". It isn't. It's a magazine. I like to think it's a good magazine, as I've written for it, but it is most definitely not a scientific journal.
Oil companies would be richer than ever if this pans out. The oil won't stop being needed, it'll just stop being burned. And quite a few "oil companies" have figured out that they are in the energy business, not the oil business. And would probably be in the forefront of providing high-grade deuterium for your cold fusion units.
"Mr. Fusion", anyone?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Think quantum mechanics/quantum probabilities. 'Tunneling' is a very real possibility. Electron tunneling is widely used in electronics.
My thinking is that the palladium matrix is somehow modifying the quantum probability functions such that when the matrix is sufficiently saturated with deuterium nucleii, it allows superposition, which gives rise to fusion. I actually came up with this explanation years ago when some people had success and others failed, now it turns out there may actually be evidence to support it.
I love this notion that "the POWERS THAT BE suppressed the IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE for their own evil ends!" It's such a charming fantasy.
The Evil Vested Interests of the world are regularly blindsided by new technology. The usual pattern (*cough*RIAA*cough*) is that they ignore it until it really starts to hurt them, and then they try to make it go away through legal action. Those folks do not have a magic ability to predict the future. In fact, they demonstrably suck at it.
When "cold fusion" was announced, the people who discredited it were academics who tried like hell to reproduce the effect, and found it to be irreproducible based on the information they had at the time. This is called "peer review". Scientists are supposed to be profoundly skeptical. In that respect, they differ from conspiracy theorists.
If you RTFA, you'll notice that no extravagant claims are being made. If it turns out that there's something there which really is both reproducible and interesting, we'll hear more about it.
I'd highly recomend the wikipedia article on cold fusion, here.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
...ever bothered to pick up a copy of Infinite Energy magazine?
If you had, you might have noticed that there have been papers posted from labs around the world with consistent, reproducible results, for the past 10 years. I realize it's fashionable in some circles to read Skeptical Inquirer and be devotees of The Annoying Randi, but an open mind and a real scientific inquiry is actually sometimes needed. Rejecting something out of hand because you don't understand what's occurring doesn't qualify as objective scientific inquiry, no matter what experts are doing the rejection. (And yes, that's exactly what the reaction was of many of the experts in both the fusion and fission communities... "I don't understand what's happening here and it contradicts all my pet theories, and, more importantly, may affect my sources of funding and research grants... so it MUST be a lot of crap. Even though I've never investigated it, I just know it.")
BTW, for the tinfoil hat crowd, shortly after the DoE announced that they going to reinvestigate the published research, the founder and editor of Infinite Energy magazine, Dr. Eugene Mallove, was found murdered in his home. Make of it what you will.
I was at the APS meeting where Cold Fusion was officially debunked.
About five different highly respected labs, including at UMD and
Caltech, tried and failed to reproduce the results.
BUT.
Here's the thing: at least one (maybe two?) of the labs noted that
Pons & Fleischmann's results could be reproduced if one neglected one
of the steps needed to reproduce it (stirring?). If one failed to do
that step, you would get a chemical reaction of about the magnitude
P&F described.
Note well that the likeliest reason for any other researcher to
observe the reaction P&F describe would be a similar carelessness.
Could it be cold fusion? Could be. But it's very, very, very
unlikely. The chances of human error are alot higher than the
chances that physical theory is so wrong.
There was one embarrassing mistake. The funding agencies had already
promised funding for cold fusion. Thus, a (sometimes persuasive)
constituency was created for keeping cold fusion research dollars
flowing. That constituency is basically being paid to keep the cold
fusion myth alive. That's anothing thing you should keep in mind when
you hear about cold fusion nonfailures (because it's as likely that
you'll see cold fusion generators as it is that you'll get a real
opportunity to own the Brooklyn Bridge...)
Cold Fusion is simply Fusion at a lower macro-temperature (as in a room-temperature room). Fusion clearly is possible, unless you care to explain atomic weapons, stars, nuclear power another way (do I hear giant government conspiracy maybe? matrix-like pseudo-reality?).
Cold fusion may or may not be possible, but clearly science hasn't proven it either way. And as another form of Fusion, it certainly does not violate the 2nd law.
Does anybody really think that the providers of centralized x would not be threatened by the prospect of decentralized x? And that, threatened, they would do nothing to stop or delay it? Has the cold war between proprietary and open source software taught us nothing?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
With all due respect to the above journals, they are not peer-reviewed journals where research results are reported. If the journals had been Nature, Science and Physics Review, then I'd be excited. But they aren't, so I'm not. Besides, I read the articles, and I didn't get the impression they were all that enthusiastic...
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
Though it appears that he may be right in the end -- cold fusion does exist -- that is how science works. It was extremely difficult for people to reproduce it and since the success rate was on par with anomolous behavior, it was regarded as a fluke.
The same thing happened to Henry Bessemer when he produced high-quality steel by blowing air through it. When others couldn't reproduce it on a regular basis, he had to go back and review what he had done. It nearly broke him, but in the end he found that by pure chance, he had used low-phosphorus steel in his experiments. Once this was shown, uptake was initially slow, but as soon as it was proven to be reproduceable, it caught on and allowed the widespread use of modern steel -- and allowed Bessemer to become very wealthy.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I thought they meant Macromedia Cold Fusion was back from the dead.