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Cold Fusion Gets a Boost From the US Navy
Tjeerd writes in to alert us to the publication in a highly respected, peer-reviewed journal of results indicative of table-top fusion. The US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, CA (called Spawar) has apparently been conducting research on "cold fusion" since the days of the discredited report of Pons and Fleischmann. They are reporting on the reproducible detection of highly energetic charged particles from a wire coated in palladium-deuterium and subjected to either an electric or a magnetic field. Their paper was published in February in the journal Naturwissenschaften (which has published work by Einstein, Heisenberg, and Lorenz). New Scientist also has a note about the fusion work but it is available only to subscribers.
You can bet the Navy is interested in any portable, high-power energy source that could exceed the efficiency of fission reactors. Those rail guns they're pimping probably take a lot of power to operate.
More power to em (literally and figuratively).
The US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, CA (called Spawar) has apparently been conducting research on "cold fusion"
.NET or J2EE.
I wonder why they chose that over ASP
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
is the work (also funded by the navy) undertaken by Dr. Bussard (of interstellar spaceship fame). His design for an electrostatic inertial confinement machine shows more promise than the heavy, expensive tokamak prefered by the internatinal ITER project, and has been built and tested in the lab, but not yet to an energy-return scale. The work was kept secret due to the source of funding, for the last 12 years, so it is only now that we're hearing aboutu it. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846 673788606 - Lecture given by Bussard at google, giving an overview of the project. 1:30 long, so if you don't have time, read:
http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC %20Paper.pdf - Summary paper, outlining the research and results so far. The real research paper is yet to be published, but that's what he's working on now.
I have no
This is completely useless and a waste of time. Everyone knows if they need it they have Naquadah Generators at their disposal!
"... low energy nuclear reaction (LERN)" Someone needs to LERN to abbreviate correctly. (-:
... that one day I'll be able to use the melted ice in my 'Cold Fusion' brand beer cooler to recharge my laptop and my iPod ... or even my TV remote.
The "Cold Fusion" field has seen many more experimental successes: detection of neutrons, tritium, helium, transmutations of heavier elements, non-natural-abundance isotope ratios, detection of ionizing radiation. The best place to visit for an overview of the field is http://www.lenr-canr.org/.
Though the experiments are remarkable, no concensus on the theory has emerged yet. Nuclear reactions are clearly happening, but it is doubtful that it is conventional fusion, that is, nuclei moving fast enough to surmount their mutual Coulombic repulsion. Something seems to be screening or catalysing the reactions.
Not the Navy.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
For an video/documentary outlining the status of the "Cold Fusion" field, see the following over on Google video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6426393169 641611451&q=COLD+FUSION&hl=en
I won't believe the Navy has really discovered anything until they commission The Village People to write a song about it.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
After all, obscenely noisey, light emitting shrimp bubbles have been jamming their sonar.. Someone finally went hmmmm...
Oh yeah, something similar proposed to kick off supernovae and detected in solar reactions
Anyhow, seems like sound waves might make a plasma confinement field and also pump energy into it, rather than using magnets and lasers etc. Some other thread Definition of Sonoluminescence
PS If the universe is electrical and acoustic, it must be a giant stereo!
The experiment would probably work better if they built the prototype in a cup of tea!
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Yup, Low Energy Nuclear Reactions or Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reaction. There is quite a lot that is published here: http://www.lenr-canr.org/. The SPAWARS work is quite impressive, with more links to it at http://www.lenr-canr.org/News.htm.s -selling-solar.html
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So maybe I've had a few tonight, but I'm thoughtful enough to not go texting people at this hour. I'll just bug all of you instead.
I feel like I've been reading about cold fusion for as long as I've been old enough to read about science. I can't shake the feeling that cold fusion research is the modern equivalent of alchemy. That is to say that it's kind of a dead end in itself, but the amount of work being done to that end is yielding all kinds of results that will be beneficial to other scientists at some other point.
As to why I just had to come on here and spew this, I will refer you to my colleague, Professor Daniels.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
Damnit, I work for SPAWAR but didn't even know we were messing around with cold fusion. You learn something new everyday on /.
I think I remeber that some of the references in this review http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinnewphys ica.pdf to the "heat after death" effect described buckets of water evaporating. For most experiments they try to keep delta T low because they are trying to get an accurate
energy measurement using flow calorimeters.s -selling-solar.html
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When I saw the title I thought it was about ColdFusion and started wondering why the hell would the Navy want to improve MySpace :)
The energy produced per fusion event pretty much has to be the same, but the rate at which the fusion occurs is controled differently. If this can be harnessed for energy production, it may end up as distributed power generation rather than centralized power generation envisioned for hot fusion. There does seem to be sufficient palladium available to make significant levels of power.s -selling-solar.html
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The method of recording nuclear tracks is a solid is an old one but it has the advantage that the recording material can be placed very close to the reaction. This has lead to the discovery of very short lived particles that might be long sought axions in a recent accelerator experiment: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0954-3899/34/1/009. The plastic detectors used in the SPAWARS experiment can be placed close to the electrode
so that background is a smaller part of the overall signal. Their method of electrode fabrication is also impressive. It seems to work just about
every time.s -selling-solar.html
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...Yvan Eht Nioj
"The experiments were reproducible."
That's for other scientists to say.
Loons tend to tell you their results are reproducable. Scientists tend to tell you to see for yourself.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
*wipes brow*
the other one needs to just go away.
...it's all about probabilities.
:-D
For my fellow nukes out there, remember cross-sections ? [Note to self: Wikipedia is like the duct tape of encyclopedias; there's nothing it can't do, but do use with caution]. If the experimenters can improve the probability of the reaction's occurrence, then sure, fusion can result. I mean, who would have thought that less than 100 years ago, setting up a pile of graphite bricks with bits of U metal at Stagg Field would have spawned an entire industry for energy and war. More power to these folks who test the boundaries... just try not to create black holes that sink to the center of the earth and consume it .
Science never settles, never rests.
It's called Ampere's Law(http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mag netic/magcur.html ). ;-)
Your tax dollars at work.
I didn't bother with the article due to the subject matter being of little interest other than to show how money and minds are being wasted. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The most amusing comment was that they were able to recreate Fleischman and Pons 'excess energy' - but pointed out that the palladium electrodes became more resistive when absorbing hydrogen and that they were using constant current power supplies (hint: Fleischman and Pons weren't monitoring the power supply voltage).
Now, I am certainly not a nuclear physicist. But the link from the headline was just plain wrong. The paper titled
"Further evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd/D lattice: emission of charged particles"
As linked from slashdot only goes to an erratum for the paper:
"Evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd lattice"
I hope nobody actually paid $32 for the former, which is a 1-page mention of an overlooked reference to the latter. The latter paper, which properly comes from "Volume 92, Number 8 / August, 2005" of the same journal, is 4 pages long.
I wish an editor would have caught that one. Its rather silly to get excited about an erratum rather than the actual paper.
Really? I don't recall the part of Ampere's Law that mentions the production of energetic subatomic particles. That's what this story is about. They aren't claiming excess energy production. That was in the SUMMARY.
Pons and Fleischmann didn't begin with lab experiments but with a theory, that protons packed together under intense pressure would have a quantum probability of fusing, similar to the way that electrons tunnel. Palladium soaks up hydrogen (that's why it is used) and inside a palladium electrode, the hydrogen is forced by electric charge to be highly pressurized. Lab experiments have verified that funny things happen, resembling nuclear fusion, but to say there is no plausible theory as to why is just plain wrong.
right now China has made us look like asses by very effectively using very old tech (diesel-run subs) to sneak up on US carrier groups a couple times. They charge up massive batteries with the diesel engines, then can run for a while completely silent, and at the same temp as their environment.
We were brainiacs and went to nuclear power for many of our more important subs, which run very *hot*, even if they are silent. They can be seen easily due to their thermal footprint.
Cold fusion, therefore, would be a way to have the diesel benefits, without having to surface frequently to recharge. A completely silent sub that can stay down for very long periods of time, with no thermal footprint...what, other than cold fusion, could possibly provide such a thing? Unless they could train some whales, and make some harnesses...
Keep in mind that the purpose of military R&D isn't to develop working products; it's to get funding to continue work. This is especially true for the pseudoprivate military contractors like Boeing and Raytheon, but also partly true for groups like Spawar... who tend to be less greedy but also less concerned with actually making something that works. Military R&D labs and contractors don't manufacture products; they manufacture grants.
... but they kept at it, because they were getting paid to do it by people unconcerned with whether or not it *would* work.
Saying "They must be on to something, because they're still doing the research" isn't valid, because they're only still doing the research because they can get money for it.
I had an engineering professor who once worked on Reagan's Star Wars program. He admitted that everyone in his team knew for a fact, based on sound science, that what they were doing would never work
so they can't, sorry. BTW, the sailor was also the policeman.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Does anyone know how the output energy compares to the input energy for this military experiment?
...of the very piece of CR-39 plastic that detected the atomic particles. And it even has a genuine Roosevelt dime next to it. What more proof could you want?
No, wait, it's only a piece of CR-39 plastic like the one that detected the atomic particles. Never mind.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Actually, the budget that funded this paper was a few thousand dollars a year of discretionary funds http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET19.htm#ee. One of the main contributions of Navy labs to this field is metalurgical skills. There has been actual funding from time to time but for the most part people work on this on their own time.s -selling-solar.html
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At this point, they are not aiming for net energy production. Their two main advances are to 1) use codeposition to get deutrium loading from the beginning and 2) using a detector that can fit within the experiment. The first advance means that the effects are seen just about every time, and the second means that the background has less of an effect on detection, particularly if charged particles are involved since these have trouble escaping the experimental setup owing to Compton losses. Getting more power out than in is not really the basic measure though. The power out so far is heat, so you want quite an excess before you can turn that back into something usable.s -selling-solar.html
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Energy out from the Sun: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Sorry to break it to you, after you gave us all those sources on why cold fusion can't work, but the polywell is cold fusion too.
Correction: We don't have an accepted theoretical framework. I've certainly heard talks where such a framework is proposed, and the codeposition particle sizes in the present experiment are anticipated by theory, but it is still much too soon to say if one theory or another is correct, or if any existing theories are adequate. But, I think you are right that this is a more exciting area to dig in.s -selling-solar.html
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As stated, I didn't bother to read the article and so I'm only commenting on the
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The Naturwissenschaften authors published an erratum in a later issue stating that the effect they had observed was explained by the following paper, of which they were unaware: Ultra low momentum neutron catalyzed nuclear reactions on metallic hydride surfaces
His test rigs were 1/8th scale, and he did not have enough power and or other elements
for 'steady state' operation. Doing the work without steady operation is tedious and
possibly missing some key elements of the process.
The Hirsch-Farnsworth device held the record for its energy levels for a long while,
Bussard's exceeded this by quite a bit and shows great promise.
The video is long, and he can be a bit monotone at times, but his brilliance
is undeniable and verifiable thru the video and elsewhere.
DARPA funded the project for a good many years til it got visibility,
then ppl working the ITER's got wind of it and had its funding killed.
Some of the ppl working on ITER who have homes and families no doubt will
post here against Bussard in the interest of protecting their families
and homes, and lives.
I can't say I blame them, but perhaps they should look at the big picture
of what it would do for the entire world if this came to fruition.
Grid based IEC devices like wisconsin's are limited due to the grid,
he discusses the theory of this in the video, and shows that he
managed a visible "wiffle ball" as he calls it in one of his experiments.
I can't say he will succeed beyond a shadow of a doubt, but his peers
have a great deal of respect for his ability and progress thus far.
In fact the navy allowed him to take all the equipment they purchsed for
him over the years and donate it to private corporation of his choice.
It just happens to be the same ppl that built Spaceship One.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Science journalism has some... problems. It's unfortunate really, because their often ludicrous claims, contrasted with the steady, gradual, cumulative nature of real research, creates an impression in the public mind that scientists have no goddam idea what they're doing.
Basically, he's saying "I think I know enough to budget a commercially interesting fusion power source". That's a big claim. But there's a smaller phase 1 if you only want to fund that; he doesn't need $200M to push the frontiers of science.
He doesn't want to rebuild exactly what broke last time - if nothing else, he'd like to fix it so it won't break!
But $100K isn't going to be enough to learn anything.
The fact that the fusor generates fusion is no mystery to anyone; this isn't like cold fusion. The question is, can it be scaled up and can the losses be kept down to tolerable levels. That's why there's a minimum scale required to be interesting.
And I do seem to recall from the presentation that he needs a good-sized vacuum chamber that won't mess up the magnetic fields too much. The fusion happens in the middle of the cuboctahedron, but the particles circulate in and out. (The need to make the magnet's surfaces exactly parallel to the magnetic field lines so the plasma doesn't hit them and cool is the big discovery he made.)
So it's not quite tabletop equipment we're talking about.
What many people don't seem to realise (and indeed something I missed myself when I was playing around with a copputer simulation of Stimulated Raman Scattering in inertial confinement fusion as part of my undergraduate degree) is that temperture is not just the average of the kinetic energy of the particles involved. Consider what woudl happen if you fire a bullet at a very high speed. The average kinetic energy of the particles in the bullet is quite high, but seen from the rest frame of the bullet they only move due to thermal vibrations. It is the velocity of hydrogen nuclei relative to one another that matters. In a plasma these velocities are due to the high temperature, and it is therefore very hot. However, there isn't any particular reason why you couldn't carefully fire the nuclei against one another in a particle accelerator. In such a case, you could accelerate all the nuclei to pretty much the same velocity, and it wouldn't be "hot" in the thermal sense. If you do it with a fusion reaction that doesn't produce neutrons you can even extract the kinetic energy of the resulting particles directly, circumventing the carnot limit of efficiency because you don't let the energy get converted into heat. In practice there are all kinds of reasons why such a scheme is not practical, and a hot plasma confined in a magnetic field is the most promising way to generate power, but it is far from the only plausible way ( at least from a theoretical point of view). As for the polywell scheme it is nonsense. If you are to confine a plasma using a magnetic field you will need a very strong field to avoid heat losses, period. You can confine a plasma fairly easily ( a flourescent light tube manages just fine ) but to be useful as a power source it has to do so at a sufficiently high density, and more importantly, with low energy losses to the surroundings. If you try to use a weak magnetic field your plasma will end up with a lowe density and large surface area, meaning it will rapidly lose energy to the surroundings. Furthermore, even if you manage to confine it ( as modern reactors do ) that is only the start of your problems. Once the reaction actually gets going you will see your vessel exposed to neutron radiation even stronger than what you have in the core of a traditional nuclear powerplant. Now in a traditional nuclear reactor this is not a [show stopping] problem because the coolant, moderator, nuclear fuel, and controll rods all soak up a whole lot of neutrons. In a fusion reactor you have a fairly empety vacume chamber, and your reactor vessel, magnets, hydrogen injection system, divertor, temperature sensors etc are all directly exposed to the hottest plasma in the solar system ( yes that includes the core of the sun ). The polywell scheme hasn't even managed to achieve fusion rates similar to those used in traditional tabletop devices ( yes they exists ) that the Oil industry use for prospecting. Even if he could get his scheme to confine the plasma, he has not proposed any way to get the fusion products out of the plasma, how to deal with the neutron radiation, nor how to make it produce enough excess power to be useful as a powerplant. In sumary, it goes. "I think this might work, but I can't give details as to why, I think I saw 3 neutrons (there are 10^23 nuclei in 1 gram of hydrogen ) but I can't show you how I did it because my device is broken. Please give me some money." Tabletop fusion is easy ( easy enough that teenagres do it in their basements ) making a practical power source out of it is a completely different thing.
Have you ever served on a sub? I question your knowledge. The way you detect a nuclear sub is still by noise, normally the cooling pumps for the reactor. Cold fusion would eliminate those pumps and the noise that goes with it. A diesel electric has always been the quitest boat under the sea and anyone can sneak up on a surface task force. We used to joke about the skimmers pinging away like they could find something with active sonar, what a joke! We could hear them pinging over 50 miles away, with that kind of head start did they stand a chance of finding us? Hell NO!. Every exercise with a USN task force or RN ended with us inside the screen and execise shots passing under the flagship. Nobody ever tracked us thermally because it mixes with the surrounding water to fast. Now a P3 with a MAD unit (magnetic anomally detector) was a bitch to get away from! That was the only thing that could ever find us when we didn't want to be found. The Soviets were always 3 generations behind in quieting and sonar.
signed - a cold war sub sailor
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Yes, diesel subs are typically quieter than our lovely US nuclear models, but have the limitation of needing to surface/come to PD to charge batteries and air flasks. The nuke boats have the distinct advantage of being able to stay submerged until they run out of food - or, more importantly, coffee.
Contrary to most of the existing "cold fusion" scientists, our privately held company, Lattice Energy LLC, believes that certain well-established anomalous experimental results (e.g. He-4 production, excess heat, transmutations) that have frequently been reported by researchers in the field since 1989 are best explained by invoking the weak interaction, not strong interaction fusion or fission. Our theoretical model of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions is outlined in four readily available papers listed below: "Ultra low momentum neutron catalyzed nuclear reactions on metallic hydride surfaces" Eur. Phys. J. C 46, 107-111 (2006) "Absorption of Nuclear Gamma Radiation by Heavy Electrons on Metallic Hydride Surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0509269 "Nuclear Abundances in Metallic Hydride Electrodes of Electrolytic Chemical Cells" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0602472 "Theoretical standard model rates of proton to neutron conversions near metallic hydride surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/nucl-th/0608059 Importantly, no "new physics" is involved here, merely an extension of collective effects to electroweak theory within the context of the Standard Model. Thus, the phenomenon is not strong interaction "cold fusion" and never was! More papers are in preparation and will be uploaded to the Cornell physics arXiv server when they are ready. More recently, a short article by veteran science reporter Jon Van titled, "Nuclear reactions may produce phones' power," published in the Chicago Tribune last Monday, April 16. It can be found on the web at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0704140 065apr16,0,1831279.story?coll=chi-business-hed
L. Larsen, CEO of Lattice Energy LLC and Prof. A. Widom, Dept. of Physics, Northeastern University
HEADLINE: Cold fusion rides again;
Physicists scoff, but enthusiasts say they now have hard evidence that proves room temperature fusion is real. Bennett Daviss takes a closer look
BYLINE: Bennett Daviss.
Bennett Daviss is a science writer in New Hampshire
BODY:
FROM a distance, the plastic wafer Frank Gordon is proudly displaying looks like an ordinary microscope slide. Yet to Gordon it is hugely more significant than that. If he is to be believed, the pattern of pits embedded in this unassuming sliver of polymer provides confirmation for the idea that nuclear fusion reactions can be made to happen at room temperature, using simple lab equipment. It's a dramatic claim, because nuclear fusion promises virtually limitless energy.
Gordon's plastic wafer is the product of the latest in a long line of "cold fusion" experiments conducted at the US navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, California. What makes this one stand out is that it has been published in the respected peer-reviewed journal Naturwissenschaften , which counts Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Konrad Lorenz among its eminent past authors (DOI: 10.1007/s00114-007-0221-7). Could it really be true that nuclear fusion can be coaxed into action at room temperature, using only simple lab equipment? Most nuclear physicists don't think so, and dismiss Gordon's pitted piece of plastic as nothing more than the result of a badly conceived experiment. So who is right?
The notion that cold fusion might be possible burst onto the scene in March 1989. That's when chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, working at the University of Utah, announced that they had run a table-top electrolysis experiment in which a fusion reaction took place, producing more energy than it consumed. A world of endless, virtually free fuel seemed to be in the offing - but not for long. Fleischmann and Pons's results quickly proved elusive in other research labs. The hapless pair were laughed out of mainstream science, and most nuclear physicists since have refused to give the slightest credence to the idea.
Not everyone gave up on cold fusion, however. Electrochemists Pamela Mosier-Boss and Stanislaw Szpak at the San Diego centre's navigation and applied sciences department were intrigued. Fortunately, so was Gordon, their boss, who provided limited funding for experiments. Mosier-Boss and Szpak have now run hundreds of tests at weekends and during their spare moments, and have published more than a dozen papers in various peer-reviewed journals (New Scientist , 29 March 2003, p 36).
Typically, these table-top experiments have involved lowering an electrode made of the precious metal palladium into a solution of an inert salt dissolved in "heavy water" - in which a large proportion of the hydrogen atoms are of the element's heavy isotope deuterium. In deuterium, the atomic nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the usual single proton.
When an electric current is passed through the solution, deuterium atoms start to pack into spaces in the palladium's lattice-like atomic framework. Eventually, after a period of days or weeks, there is approximately one deuterium atom for each palladium atom, at which point things start to happen.
Quite what happens or why isn't clear. Whatever it is appears to release more energy, as heat, than the experiment consumes. Proponents of cold fusion claim that the excess energy comes from a nuclear fusion reaction involving the deuterium nuclei.
To get a fusion reaction going normally requires temperatures of millions of degrees, to give the nuclei enough energy to overcome the repulsion between the positive charges of their protons. The result is that two deuterium nuclei combine to produce either tritium - an even heavier hydrogen isotope - plus a free proton, or an atom of helium-3 and a free neutron. Either way the reaction also liberates a large amount of energy.
There is, however, no consensus for how cold fusion might work, and with researc
Contrary to most of the existing "cold fusion" scientists, our privately held company, Lattice Energy LLC, believes that certain well-established anomalous experimental results (e.g. He-4 production, excess heat, transmutations) that have frequently been reported by researchers in the field since 1989 are best explained by invoking the weak interaction, not strong interaction fusion or fission. Our theoretical model of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions is outlined in four readily available papers listed as follows: "Ultra low momentum neutron catalyzed nuclear reactions on metallic hydride surfaces" Eur. Phys. J. C 46, 107-111 (2006) "Absorption of Nuclear Gamma Radiation by Heavy Electrons on Metallic Hydride Surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0509269 [arxiv.org] "Nuclear Abundances in Metallic Hydride Electrodes of Electrolytic Chemical Cells" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0602472 [arxiv.org] "Theoretical standard model rates of proton to neutron conversions near metallic hydride surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/nucl-th/0608059 [arxiv.org] Importantly, no "new physics" is involved here, merely an extension of collective effects to electroweak theory within the context of the Standard Model. Thus, the phenomenon is not strong interaction "cold fusion" and never was! More papers are in preparation and will be uploaded to the Cornell physics arXiv server when they are ready. More recently, a short article by veteran science reporter Jon Van titled, "Nuclear reactions may produce phones' power," published in the Chicago Tribune on Monday, April 16. It can be found on the web at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0704140 065apr16,0,1831279.story?coll=chi-business-hed [chicagotribune.com] L. Larsen, CEO of Lattice Energy LLC and Prof. A. Widom, Dept. of Physics, Northeastern University
Contrary to most of the existing "cold fusion" scientists, our privately held company, Lattice Energy LLC, believes that certain well-established anomalous experimental results (e.g. He-4 production, excess heat, transmutations) that have frequently been reported by researchers in the field since 1989 are best explained by invoking the weak interaction, not strong interaction fusion or fission. Our theoretical model of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions is outlined in four readily available papers listed as follows: "Ultra low momentum neutron catalyzed nuclear reactions on metallic hydride surfaces" Eur. Phys. J. C 46, 107-111 (2006) "Absorption of Nuclear Gamma Radiation by Heavy Electrons on Metallic Hydride Surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0509269 [arxiv.org] "Nuclear Abundances in Metallic Hydride Electrodes of Electrolytic Chemical Cells" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0602472 [arxiv.org] "Theoretical standard model rates of proton to neutron conversions near metallic hydride surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/nucl-th/0608059 [arxiv.org] Importantly, no "new physics" is involved here, merely an extension of collective effects to electroweak theory within the context of the Standard Model. Thus, the phenomenon is not strong interaction "cold fusion" and never was! More papers are in preparation and will be uploaded to the Cornell physics arXiv server when they are ready. More recently, a short article by veteran science reporter Jon Van titled, "Nuclear reactions may produce phones' power," published in the Chicago Tribune on Monday, April 16. It can be found on the web at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0704140 065apr16,0,1831279.story?coll=chi-business-hed [chicagotribune.com] L. Larsen, CEO of Lattice Energy LLC and Prof. A. Widom, Dept. of Physics, Northeastern University
Contrary to most of the existing "cold fusion" scientists, our privately held company, Lattice Energy LLC, believes that certain well-established anomalous experimental results (e.g. He-4 production, excess heat, transmutations) that have frequently been reported by researchers in the field since 1989 are best explained by invoking the weak interaction, not strong interaction fusion or fission. Our theoretical model of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions is outlined in four readily available papers listed as follows: "Ultra low momentum neutron catalyzed nuclear reactions on metallic hydride surfaces" Eur. Phys. J. C 46, 107-111 (2006) "Absorption of Nuclear Gamma Radiation by Heavy Electrons on Metallic Hydride Surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0509269 [arxiv.org] [arxiv.org] "Nuclear Abundances in Metallic Hydride Electrodes of Electrolytic Chemical Cells" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0602472 [arxiv.org] [arxiv.org] "Theoretical standard model rates of proton to neutron conversions near metallic hydride surfaces" http://www.arxiv.org/pdf/nucl-th/0608059 [arxiv.org] [arxiv.org] Importantly, no "new physics" is involved here, merely an extension of collective effects to electroweak theory within the context of the Standard Model. Thus, the phenomenon is not strong interaction "cold fusion" and never was! More papers are in preparation and will be uploaded to the Cornell physics arXiv server when they are ready. More recently, a short article by veteran science reporter Jon Van titled, "Nuclear reactions may produce phones' power," published in the Chicago Tribune on Monday, April 16. It can be found on the web at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0704140 [chicagotribune.com] 065apr16,0,1831279.story?coll=chi-business-hed [chicagotribune.com] L. Larsen, CEO of Lattice Energy LLC and Prof. A. Widom, Dept. of Physics, Northeastern University
Much more interesting are the Siemens polymer fuel cell submarines -- the Germans have built shaped LOX/LH tanks on the outside of the pressure hull for safety reasons (there are also some anti-mine properties), but still manage full gas flow to the fuel cells, so there is no real need to carry conventional batteries at all, leading to a substantial weight and space savings. Operating durations are on the order of weeks, although there is scope for at-sea refuelling in forthcoming designs, as well as better ducting and jetting of the drive, greater use of non-ferrous components and flatter external surfaces.
Depending on how much of this finds its way into the forthcoming French and British SSBNs, the various European NATO countries will have astonishingly quiet, manoeuvrable, long-range and fast underwater platforms they can stuff to the gills with a variety of missiles (cruise and ballistic) and park anywhere they want.
The point was probably to keep you 51 nm away... it's a bit of a placebo though, not actual area denial.
Bennett Daviss' article in New Scientist on May 3 is a follow-up piece to the in-depth article on the SPAWAR San Diego research by Steven Krivit and Daviss published in New Energy Times in November.
O M...
Extraordinary Evidence (Nov. 10, 2006) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET19.htm#ee)
Extraordinary Courage: Report on Some LENR Presentations at the 2007 American Physical Society Meeting (March 16, 2007) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2007/NET21.htm#aps r...
Charged Particles for Dummies: A Conversation With Lawrence P.G. Forsley (May 10, 2007) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2007/NET22.htm)
Apparently, New Scientist chose to neglect the term "low energy nuclear reactions," which those of us observing, and working in the field have now adopted.
The term "cold fusion" was never chosen by Fleischmann and Pons; it was wished on them by the press. It was and is a poor descriptor for the phenomenon. The concept of fusion remains highly speculative, a variety of phenomena are clearly not fusion, and then there is the Widom-Larsen not-fusion theory. (http://www.newenergytimes.com/wltheory)
Related New Energy Times stories: Report on the 2006 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference (Sept. 10, 2006) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET18.htm#FR
Steven Krivit Editor, New Energy Times
"The point was probably to keep you 51 nm away... it's a bit of a placebo though, not actual area denial."
We got inside the screen every time. Whether against a U.S. Task Group, NATO group, or Soviet, didn't matter. They couldn't find us if we didn't want to be found. We had to install a noisemaker for exercises, played tapes of Red boats through a 500W Mcintosh amp and still got inside the screen. When the Kiev first left the Black Sea and came into the Med, we went underneath and did a hull survey, photographed every square inch. She was only escorted by 5 Destroyers, 2 Cruisers and 3 subs. We did not get caught!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.