Bubble Fusion Inquiry Under Wraps

hubie writes "Purdue University launched an investigation last March into the questionable research behavior and actions by Prof. Rusi Taleyarkhan following his controversial claims of achieving bubble fusion. The investigation has completed but the results are being kept secret. The alleged behavior is remeniscent of another tabletop fusion incident from a number of years back. Coincidentally, Purdue University has just secured Federal money to open up a new energy center. A more cynical person than I might suggest that there is a connection between the two."

Comments

Re:What the hell is "bubble fusion"?

[evw]

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060121/fob7. asp

Fusion reactions take place in the vat because clusters of bubbles form and then violently collapse, explains nuclear engineer and team leader Rusi P. Taleyarkhan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. A neutron or another energetic particle triggers a bubble to form in a low-pressure trough of the ultrasound waves, he says. Then, high pressure from the wave crushes the orb to an enormous density and temperature that fuse some atomic nuclei of the bubble's gas.

Re:My roomate works in that lab

[tpjunkie]

Mod parent up. As odd as it sounds, the poster is pretty much correct. I've tried to do normal sonoluminescence in a lab, and mostly it just doesn't work. Everything needs to be precisely perfect to create the standing waves that cause the bubbles to "implode" and release light, so god only knows how much harder it is to actually cause fusion. Of course, when you do get it perfect and working, it's pretty damned cool. I wouldn't write this one off just yet.

Re:What is it with this "Fusion"?

[The_Wilschon]

The reality is that the only reproducable, controlled, fusion reactions mankind has managed to generate in a reproducable manner consume much more power than they generate, and are many, many years before becoming a source of power.

Only half true. Magnetic confinement fusion has definitely passed breakeven. The amount by which the output power exceeds input power is still sufficiently low (ratio around 1.2), however, that it is not yet a source of power, and probably will not be for several years yet.

Regarding fusion by-products, the fact is that most fusion reactions produce deadly forms of radiation, weather "cold" or "hot", and the fuels required for a-neutronic reactions are not in infinite supply.

Which fusion byproducts were you thinking of? Helium? Not particularly deadly or radioactive. Shielding from the radiation produced during the fusion reaction itself is trivial, and as I said, you don't really get much in the way of dangerous byproducts. d+t fusion gives Helium-4 (perfectly safe), and d+d fusion either gives Helium-3 (again, safe), or tritium. The tritium is radioactive, true. Most of it will likely be consumed in d+t reactions, and whatever is left over (if any) is enormously less problematic that fission byproducts. The halflife is ~12 years, compared to halflives in the thousands or millions of years for fission byproducts. Aneutronic fusion is not necessary. Desirable, perhaps. The aneutronic reactions produce significantly less energy than d+t, but on the other hand, it is much easier to capture and use. But certainly not necessary. And the fuels for neutronic reactions are available in enormously abundant supply. FUD.

You would think that the fusion reactions are not dangerous, do not pollute, and the fuels involved are of infinite supply.

Yes. Yes you would think that. For a very good reason. It is very nearly true. The danger is nearly zero (in an accident, the machinery necessary to sustain the plasma would be destroyed very quickly, and the remaining plasma would not last long enough to do nearly any damage at all.), the pollution is nearly zero (see what I said about byproducts and radiation shielding above), and the fuel is nearly inexhaustible (The sun is likely to go nova (thus ending the possiblity of, say, solar power...) before we use up the fusion fuel available in our oceans).

Re:But no Texans will own it!

[ultranova]

Do realize though that this "mostly clean" waste it produces is stored underground, and is highly radioactive.

Since I stated that the waste is buried beneath the bedrock, I think it's safe to assume that I understand that it's stored underground ;).

What happens when the shielding on its casing decays, or a seismic shift ruptures the storage facility?

The shielding is a few hundred meters of rock, so it will take a while to decay. And there is plenty of stable rock around the world - don't put the darn thing near a geologically active area. Finally, while bad things can happen with nuclear power, bad things are happening with coal and oil constantly, killing at the very least thousands of people each year - that's just from emissions, not from accidents.

Besides, even if some catastrophe tore open the burial place, we are still talking about heavy solid or liquid substances on the bottom of a hundred-meter chasm. They aren't going to fly out of there on their own, so you can simply reseal the chasm. Naturally you don't want to place a nuclear dumping ground underneath a habitated area, but neither do you want to place any other kind of dumping ground or power plant there.

What happens to the ground water around the facility, which feeds the local plant and animal life, which we may eat and we do drink water?

A hundred meters of solid granite is surprisingly good at keeping water from getting to the surface. Especially if you make the walls of the burial chamber from rustproof steel or some other suitable matter.

As for nuclear-powered rockets, ARE YOU MAD? Imagine for an instant Colombia was nuclear-powered.

Well, since a nuclear-powered rocket has enough raw power to make a powered landing, as opposed to dropping from the orbit like a meteor, and doesn't need to save weight everywhere it can, meaning that it can be built with lots of safety margins everywhere, I'd say that if the shuttle was nuclear-powered, Colombia would have landed safely and been carted to receive repairs - assuming it had been damaged in the first place, since, like I said, a nuclear-powered rocket could have a lot stronger structure - while the crew went to their homes.

Instead, Colombia was chemically-powered, and operating with almost no safety margin, so it blew up as soon as something went wrong, killing everyone onboard and spewing dangerous chemicals over the whole area.

Now imagine the radioactive material being spread over much of the US, also being carried world-wide by air currents.

Hmm... A few tens of kilograms of radiactive material, spread over millions of square kilometers. Not healthy, of course, but hardly something to get worried about either. And propably a lot less radiactivity than is released as a byproduct of mining each year, or created in the upper atmosphere by solar radiation, or simply background radiation.

Radiactivity is a natural occurence. Your body also has natural defenses against it. It is only when there's sufficient concentration to overwhelm those defenses when it becomes dangerous. It is good to take precautions if you have a reason to, for example if you are working in a nuclear power plant or using an x-ray machine in a continuous basis; but thinking that a single nuclear reactor is going to cause a significant amount of damage to either the US or the whole world is simply ludicrous.

Or you could simply use some of that increased weight envelope of a nuclear-powered spaceship to put a proper steel casing around the radiactive materials of the engine, keeping them from spreading anywhere. Colombia was broken, not powdered, in the accident.

And finally, you could simply locate the launch site farther from the densely populated areas. Si