Desktop Cold Fusion Reconsidered

Armchair Anarchist writes "Nature.com reports on Rusi Taleyarkhan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is once again claiming to have achieved ultrasound-induced fusion in deuterium-enriched acetone. Other experts are sceptical, but Taleyarkhan is keen to have other scientists check his results."

Comments

Not Cold Fusion

[znu]

From the article:

The idea is simple enough. Blast a liquid with waves of ultrasound and tiny bubbles of gas are created, which release a burst of heat and light when they implode. The core of the bubble reaches 15,000 C, hot enough to wrench molecules apart.

This isn't cold fusion, it's just a sneaky way of achieving hot fusion without huge x-ray lasers and giant magnets and such.

Re:Not Cold Fusion

[radtea]

The bubbles are seriously far from thermodynamic equilibrium, so assigning a single "temperature" is misleading. If this is fusion there are clusters are particles with average energy quite a bit higher than that implied by 15,000 K.

To answer another question in this thread: the reason to be skeptical about this means of inducing hot fusion ever reaching breakeven is twofold. For one, there are getting on for a dozen different ways of inducing hot fusion that have failed to get close to breakeven in the past fifty years. Fusion is the technology of the future and always will be. For two, hot fusion in a small volume of high density matter is pretty much a worst-case in terms of loss processes.

However, given that no one would ever have predicted this phenomenon to occur at all, it is certainly not impossible that it will someday reach breakeven. My personal bias is that would be a very good thing, but I'm not hopeful that it will ever happen. Still, sometimes moonshine turns out to be stronger than anyone expected.

how how to tell if its for real

[Jodka]

The real test of whether cold fusion is for real is not scientific. It is economic. When someone opens a cold fusion power plant which sells more power than it consumes, you'll know it's the real deal.

...but it wont surpass the "break even" threshold.

[keilinw]

Nuclear Fusion is most certainly possible. However, in order for it to be useful (at least for power production purposes) the energy output must surpass the energy input. In the article it looks like (and I'm not sure if it is even true) the "ultrasonic" waves introduce enough energy into the liquid to separate molecules, which in turn fuse together and release energy.

So, the "cool" aspect of this technology is *not* that ultrasound can wrench molecules apart, but that the molecules release energy upon "fusing".

Regardless of however, "cool" this is, it is still quite impractical. Perhaps if the energy released was in the form of heat instead of "light" then a chain reaction could occur. We'll I just hope that humanity invests in the "basic" research necessary to create useful technologies from this. At a minimum, it is very interesting!

Matthew Wong.

Let's face it. . .

[jafac]

We're all willing to put up with dozens of repeat articles on cold fusion based on the dream that one day, we'll all be able to extend our middle fingers at ExxonMobilShellAramcoBushCoHalliburtonChevron.

how difficult is this?

[wall0159]

The thing I think is interesting is perception of difficulty. I have an idea:

We'll get a multiple-hundred-ton platform, and float it on the open ocean. Despite currents and storms, we'll send a 10-inch drill bit down 1-3 kilometres in to the ground below the ocean. From there we'll drill into a big oil resivoir.
Then we'll pump the oil up - without spilling it. We'll somehow load it onto ships, and distribute it all around the world.

When you think about it, this is bloody amazing. It shows what we can do if we put our minds to it. Granted - the oil industry has a bit of a headstart over cold-fusion, but we must recognise the limitations of oil and pursue other options.

One thing screams "HOAX!"

[Dr. Spork]

If they were really interested in testing this, they would use run the very same setup and test a solution with normal hydrogen (which will 100% not fuse), then compare that to their results with deuterium. This would in one stroke settle the cosmic ray question, the "it's just energy you're putting in" question, and many others.

What makes me think this is a hoax is the fact that this obvious and cheap control was not done (or not reported - either way, a bad sign).

Re:One thing screams "HOAX!"

[squoozer]

Agreed. I would also have another nutron detector set up specifically to read the background neutron count. Thick lead sheilding all round the experiment with plenty of before and after neutron measurements would be nice as well.

What makes me really skeptical is the way the experimenter is trying to change the world but hasn't been taken the time to set up a 110% bullet proof experiment. If I was going to announce something like this tothe world I would make damn sure there wasn't any possible way someone could pick simple holes in my experiment.