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.

Comments

Figures

[DrMrLordX]

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).

Re:Figures

[Da Fokka]

There's a huge difference between mere fusion reactions and an actual fusion reactor that will sustainably produce power. From what I've read, this is about the former, so I'm not keeping my fingers crossed just yet. However, it's still good to see that fusion research is being carried out along several different approaches.

Re:Figures

[MancDiceman]

Talk about xenophobic racism.

Read the post. That journal is one of the best journals in the World - look at the previous contributors mentioned in the post and tell me it's not a decent journal. Just because it's German, it doesn't mean it's "sub-par". Your post should be modded down for trolling, but unfortunately I expect it'll bubble up as "Informative".

Also, most US/British journals would refuse to publish not because they doubted the ability of the scientists to produce good quality data, but because they have a knee-jerk reaction that cold fusion is junk science.

Well done to this journal for actually taking it on.

Re:Figures

[ShooterNeo]

You might be interested to know that this isn't actually the case. A few hundred kilowatts of generating capacity is sufficient to fire rail guns. Why? Calculate the total energy content of 2 tons of explosives. That's how much kinetic energy a rail-gun shot might yield, and it isn't actually very much energy. (just released all at once : is why the rail-gun power supply would need to have massive accumulators of some type)

Re:Figures

[smilindog2000]

"Cold" fusion means cold relative to the temperature of the Sun (hot enough to fuse hydrogen). "Cold" fusion in theory could potentially boil water, and drive the turbines. However, a basic quantum physics result is that there is basically no way in heck that cold fusion will ever work, unless there is some new unknown physics taking place. While possible, it's unlikely, which is why most respected journals shy away from it, in addition to the large number of quacks the field has attracted. I put more hope in the Polywell stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

With a ISI Impact factor of ~1.2, it really is not one of the best journals in the world. It is also featured principally as a "Biomedical and Life Sciences" journal, so it would seem strange that the authors would publish a physics related article in this journal.

Also, note that the list of previous famous contributors to the journal does not cite any *current* researcher. Maybe this used to be a great journal, but it's clearly no longer the case.

Re:Figures

[smittyoneeach]

xenophobic racism

xenophobia: an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.
racism: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

You might also consider
hyperbole: obvious and intentional exaggeration.

Re:Figures

[fritsd]

Yeah, and Forbes used to be a respected business magazine.

I agree with gp, in that the journal can have a brilliant reputation, but it's probably been a while since Einstein and Heisenberg wrote articles for it.

The contents page of the issues of 2007 seems to deal more in zoology, biochemistry, ecology and palaeontology than materials science or quantum chemistry. Why was this article not published in "US military journal of applied physics" (surely there must be something like this)?

Also, I didn't read gp as being derogatory of a journal because it's in German; that would just be silly.

Re:Figures

[maxwell demon]

How else could the sentence "Why was it published in a German journal?" interpreted? He didn't ask "Why was it published in a low-impact journal?" or "Why wasn't it published in a journal with better reputation?".

Of course, otherwise the question is valid. If you had proof of cold fusion, the first place you'd submit it to would normally be Physical Review Letters. Not because it's American, but because it's simply the most reputed magazine in physics.

Re:Figures

[pallmall1]

Why choose this Journal?

From wikipedia

In 1991, Eugene Mallove who was the chief science writer with the MIT News office, said that he believes the negative report issued by MIT's Plasma Fusion Center in 1989, which was highly influential in the controversy, was fraudulent because "data was shifted" without explanation, and as a consequence, this action obscured a possible positive excess heat result at MIT. In protest of MIT's failure to discuss and acknowledge the significance of this data shift, he resigned from his post of chief science writer at the MIT News office on June 7, 1991. He maintained that the data shift was biased to both support the conventional belief in the nonexistence of the cold fusion effect as well as to protect the financial interests of the plasma fusion center's research in hot fusion. Also in 1991, Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger said that he had experienced "the pressure for conformity in editor's rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous reviewers. The replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science". He resigned as Member and Fellow of the American Physical Society, in protest of its peer review practice on cold fusion.

--bold added

Re:Figures

[gvc]

I read the paper. As you note, it is a short communication documenting some observations from an experiment. It does not purport to be a breakthrough, although it does claim that the observations must be due to a nuclear reaction. The discussion clearly states that they have no theory as to the physical mechanism that might account for the observations.

As an editor or a reviewer, I might well choose to publish a paper -- especially a short paper -- that documented some experimental results, even if the mechanism behind those results was unclear. Maybe there's a future paper forthcoming that either contradicts the results, or offers an explanation, nuclear or not. It makes sense to me to document the alleged evidence in the archival literature.

I want to repeat that the conclusions of the paper are very weak. The outrageous claims have been added later by the popular press. And the argument that "Einstein published there 100 years ago, so it must be true" is unworthy of repetition or rebuttal.

Re:Figures

[shaitand]

Lets stop tiptoeing around it. This is a credible journal but not the first choice because the most obvious choices refused to publish an article on cold fusion no matter how credible the source.

Re:Figures

[qrad]

Perhaps the authors chose this journal for its historical significance. In 1938 Naturwissenshaften reported the work of Hahn and Meitner which was later referenced in establishing the existence of fission.

qrad
Ph.D. Student in Nuclear Science and Engineering
MIT

curious

[User 956]

The US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, CA (called Spawar) has apparently been conducting research on "cold fusion"

I wonder why they chose that over ASP .NET or J2EE.

Re:curious

[Jessta]

Because Myspace proved that you can make a solid, easy to use, and efficient website with it. :P

Far more exciting

[ab8ten]

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.

Re:Far more exciting

[VoidCrow]

On the contrary, I'd suggest that the LENR work is far more exciting because we don't have a theoretical framework which describes it. New physics, anyone?

LERN

[Skrynkelberg]

"... low energy nuclear reaction (LERN)" Someone needs to LERN to abbreviate correctly. (-:

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[Eukariote]

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.

Re:Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[ResidntGeek]

Shit... "nuclear catalyst" - there's a phrase to put fear into the heart of anyone who knows what a catalyst is.

Re:Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[KitsuneSoftware]

"Nuclear catalyst" the most sensible phrase, given the theory (false or not) is that palladium can be used as a nuclear equivalent to a chemical catalyst (i.e. not used up in the reaction it assists). This "misue" of catalyst is also found in other approaches to fusion, such muon-catalyzed fusion and antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion.

Video

[Eukariote]

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 it for real until...

[Glowing Fish]

I won't believe the Navy has really discovered anything until they commission The Village People to write a song about it.

Cold Fusion

[NotFamousYet]

When I saw the title I thought it was about ColdFusion and started wondering why the hell would the Navy want to improve MySpace :)

That Depends

[mdsolar]

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.
--
Hot fusion now with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Obligitory...

[bronzey214]

...Yvan Eht Nioj

Article excerpts

[gvc]

New Scientist:

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.

Naturwissenschaften article, last sentence:

from a physicist's point of view, the theoretical arguments offered in this communication are pure speculation. It is hoped that future investigations will undoubtedly provide a clearer picture of the nuclear events taking place in the polarized Pd/D-D2O system.

Doubtful

[IvyKing]

About ten years ago, I met a couple of guys at NRAD (Navy Research And Development) in San Diego who were doubtful of the work being done on cold fusion. One of the them was making comments about dadiation being detected with some ancient technology (e.g. electroscopes) but not with more modern radiation detectors.

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).

Theory

[Darth Cider]

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.

Budget

[mdsolar]

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.
--
Go solar sooner: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Re:Key: Output Energy Exceeds Input Energy

[mdsolar]

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.
--
Energy out from the Sun: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Re:in case you were wondering the Navy's connectio

[BCW2]

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