Slashdot Mirror
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."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
This space unintentionally left unblank.
"Although the neutron count doubles at some points in the experiments, Putterman says that neutrons produced in random showers of cosmic rays, rather than fusion events, could be responsible. But Taleyarkhan points out that the neutron count was smaller in detectors further from the reaction chamber.
To prove that the neutrons are coming from fusion as bubbles burst, Putterman and Suslick suggest that the team closely monitor exactly when the neutrons appear. The current experiment simply counts up the number of neutrons detected over minutes, so correlations with bubble bursts cannot be seen."
They are NOT yet sure whether the neutrons come from bubbles or from cosmic rays.
So let's not start the usual jokes about using car stereos to power cars, sound waves harming swan ears, etc.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I'll be more interested when either the results are confirmed or one of them gets radiation poisoning. Although potentially safe by nuclear standards fusion should result in a lot more radiation than any of the cold fusion tests have so far. Good ole Mr Fusion is still going to require some serious lead shielding. There have been some intriguing results but by science standards until it can reliably be reproduced it doesn't exist. The problem is it could be a whole new effect they are seeing and not actual fusion. Even if it is if it can't be scaled up it'll wind up a laboratory curiousity and not the savor if civilization.
A byproduct of this research has led him to create the variable velocity bullet. You can read more here: http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventors/a/ve locity_bullet.htm
http://religiousfreaks.com/Here's the most important part of the article: "There is one big problem, however: the experiment doesn't always work, and the group is not sure why." Until they figure out what's going on, the group really hasn't advanced much beyond what is already there.
Also I'm interested in seeing other try to replicate their experiment. That will be the ultimate test as to whether their methods are valid or not.
Cold Fusion should focus on the server where it belongs. The desktop is just a pipe dream.
http://webster.com/dictionary/skeptical
I can't believe you call yourselves "editors", or more likely "edatters".
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.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
As long as this guy hasn't been seen around, I'm keeping an open mind.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Every school that discovers tabletop fusion has a Division 1 football team.
Unjustly dismissive. First off, even initially, Taleyarkhan rallied about as much support as he did opposition. Now, even much of his initial opposition considers his work valid. Sonofusion seems to be quite a real phenominon (albeit, currently six orders of magnitude from breakeven).
Here's a very interesting paper by him in Oct. 2005, in which they discuss many of the recent developments, including the potential for nonlinear scaling of efficiency and even the possibility of criticality. It's a very interesting read.
The *special* hell.
So apparently I'm wrong.
Oh, and apparently the new MacBook Pro produces energy too.
We now return from our commercial break.
[applause]
So the question is, Is This Experiment Reproducible? Amazingly the answer is "yes". Sonoluminescence has been an established fact in science since 1934, but has only gained attention again in 2002 when scientists began to investigate if Sonoluminescence might be... SonoFusion. The 2004 experiment by Taleyarkhan was reproducable enough that by 2005 most of the critics began to accept the idea that it might be fusion.
But are Fleischmann and Pons vindicated?
Taleyarkhan's experiments showed that sonofusion couldn't possibly be the cold fusion that excited the media so many years ago. Not only do you have to put more energy in than you get out, but the popping of each bubble produces a shockwave that heats the immediate area to thousands of degrees in temperature!
As it turns out, there's nothing cold about this fusion at all.
[Flip to video of lava flowing from volcano]
So for now, science will continue its search for this holy grail of "Cold" fusion. Perhaps one day, Fleischmann and Pons will be vindicated.
[fade to black]
(Don't you hate it when shows give you a cliffhanger like this; then after making you wait, spout some crap you already know?)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
The reason their experiment only works "sometimes", is because the US Military Industrial Complex is in cahoots with Big Oil and is using alien technology from the Rosswell crash to constantly alter the laws of physics in close proximity to any attempted Cold Fusion reactions.
--
Don't believe the hype; Tinfoil hats work.
Is this "Desktop" Cold Fusion like the ENIAC is a Desktop PC?
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
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.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Cold Fusion. And, I quote, "I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells of rainbow sherbert."
/dev/random
... of a dodgy burrito! 15,000 C - Sure feels that way. tiny bubbles of gas - Sure smells that way. which release a burst of heat and light - Sure sounds that way. hot enough to wrench molecules apart - Sure hurts that way.
We've got diesel from algae, electricity from trees, and now Mr. Fusion! We're saved! Woo Hoo!
San Francisco Photographers
Perhaps if the energy released was in the form of heat instead of "light" then a chain reaction could occur.
Incorrect. First off, you get light even when there is no fusion; the light is simply blackbody radiation of very hot material that was heated by the coalescing of shocks from bubble collapse in a very small region. The *fusion* gives off most of its energy as high-energy neutrons.
It's six orders of magnitude from breakeven currently, but has a lot of potential to scale up, including potential for criticality. Will it actually pan out as a valid energy source? Who knows; it's still in its infancy.
The *special* hell.
I hope it was the exploding grapes in a microwave that got modded "Informative" and not the South Park reference. :D
The Chewbacca Defense
(That link is pretty damned cool, by the way.)
DATABASE WOW WOW
Let's assume they can increase efficiency enough orders of magnitude they get much more heat out than they put in. Clearly they won't be able to run the "reactor" at super high temperatures, since it depends on the liquid phase of the water to work. So how will they extract enough electricity out of a relatively small temperature gradient to make the whole thing worthwhile?
Even before getting to any goal of practical power generation, the most important thing in a scientific investigation is to structure it to avoid doubts -- meaning either proving or disproving it completely. There's no dishonour in disproving it, if it helps to clarify what the remaining fusion possibilities are. Dr Taleyarkhan should have specifically monitored the neutron outputs to see if they had any cyclicality that coincided with the bubble oscillation cycle. If you get neutron spikes when the bubbles implode, then that's a very helpful sign consistent with acoustic fusion occurring. Why a big scientist like him didn't do such an obvious thing worries me. But the article says that Putterman et all will be working to duplicate his experiments. Duplication is really the essential thing for proving something. After all, if it only works when Taleyarkhan does it, but not for anybody else, then you know something's wrong.
PWRs only work if the water is in a liquid state, too ;) Now, pressure may end up being bad here, but still, it's just an issue of how quickly you can draw off heat from the core. Also, since the neutrons contain most of the energy of the reaction, you could have them tend to be absorbed in a different chamber than the core.
The *special* hell.
... and he's a freakin' genius. He taught us very briefly about his work, but was hesitant when I took the class to go into a lot of details because of the pre-publication nature of the work. The TA for the class, Adam Butt, is also a very quick guy. Although I recognize the possibility of fabrication, all the people I know around the project were hesitant to make claims until they had better proof. They are still hesitant to proclaim victory. All things considered, I think this is the most promising energy work since the Manhattan project.
Guess I don't need to buy the 1kW power supply for this system, or...?
Now, if they also would come up with a laptop cold fusion unit...
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.
>Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with
> a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks?
Whenever someone brings this up, I have only one thing to say.
Midget fetish.
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).
The scientific comunity is more like the Mafia an anything else. The idea of cold fusion is not a theory it is a fact ( this is why helium is minned ). Cold fusion happens every day inside the earth, people just don't know why or how it happens. The real problem is that the scientific community is more like the Mafia, it is not and open minded industry for enlightenment it is more like the Catholic church during Gallileos time. When pons and fleishman published their experiment they essentially threatend all of the very expensive plasma and laser bassed fusion projects and because of this it was shut down, instead of investigating the phenominae of cold fusion it was instantly ostrisized. Plasma and lasers will never work in the arena of fusion and they will just continue to suck up money and resources but the scientific comunity is backing that technowlogy and they will never acknolege any other method of fusion until the money has run dry and they are considered the fools that they are. we should be investigating and trying to replicate what is happening in the earth, but doing so wil kill your carreer.
from the article: " Imploding bubbles, caught on film emitting light. Are they emitting energy too?"
errrrr.....
As long as the fusion is happening within water, you'll deposit some energy inside the core. But let's say you've found a way to minimize that, and you've got a surrounding chamber that can go superhot. A few issues to contend with are
1) Heat flux. How do you ensure that the sono chamber stays cool while right next to a much hotter system?
2) Neutronics/materials. The wall(s) keeping the systems from mixing are going to see a whole lot of fast neutrons, which is a big problem. You have to pick a material that holds up well under fast neutron flux + heat.
These two issues are, ironically/unsurprisingly, two of the issues "conventional" magnetic fusion faces. In such a device, you've got vacuum pumps that run at cryogenic temperatures (1), and a so-called 'first wall' that sees a whole lotta neutrons over its operating lifetime (2). Needless to say, we don't have good solutions to these problems yet.
At least according to lenr-canr.org
which is the homepage for all research activities concerning
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions and Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions.
The original cold fusion experiments have been successfully replicated many times over.
There are hundreds scientists around the world working in the field
To quote the webpage:
"Cold fusion was never "debunked" and even the harshest critics until now have never suggested that it was fraudulent. The cold fusion effect was replicated at high signal to noise ratios by researchers at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake, Shell, Amoco, SRI, Texas A&M, Los Alamos, Mitsubishi Res. Center, BARC Bombay, Tsinghua U. and over a hundred other world-class laboratories."
I bet he uses a sonic screwdriver to start it off.
Couple ways around this.
The obvious answer is to pressurize the water. This will increase the boiling temperature, letting you run the reactor much hotter.
Alternately, if that is impractical, run multiple cells. Each cell may only be able to put off enough heat to produce a few volts, string enough of them together, and you can put out a lot of power. With proper design, increasing capacity would be relatively simple compared to a single large reactor. On the other hand, maintenance of potentially hundereds of minireactors could be a nightmare.
"You don't believe in all this cold-fusion mumbo jumbo do you? You know you're a very pretty lady." - Simon
There's no place like ~/
"Macromedia.com reports on Rusi Taleyarkhan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is once again claiming to have achieved dynamic web-sites using Cold Fusion. Other developers in the CS department are sceptical, but Taleyarkhan is keen to have other students check his results."