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Italian Scientists Demonstrate Cold Fusion?
Haffner quotes physorg which says "Italian scientists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced that they developed a cold fusion device capable of producing 12,400 W of heat power with an input of just 400 W....when the atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen are fused in their reactor, the reaction produces copper and a large amount of energy. The reactor uses less than 1 gram of hydrogen and starts with about 1,000 W of electricity, which is reduced to 400 W after a few minutes. Every minute, the reaction can convert 292 grams of 20C water into dry steam at about 101C. Since raising the temperature of water by 80C and converting it to steam requires about 12,400 W of power, the experiment provides a power gain of 12,400/400 = 31."
Call me when it's repeatable in more than 2 other labs please.
Rossi and Focardi’s paper on the nuclear reactor has been rejected by peer-reviewed journals, but the scientists aren’t discouraged. They published their paper in the Journal of Nuclear Physics, an online journal founded and run by themselves, which is obviously cause for a great deal of skepticism. They say their paper was rejected because they lack a theory for how the reaction works. According to a press release in Google translate, the scientists say they cannot explain how the cold fusion is triggered, “but the presence of copper and the release of energy are witnesses.”
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Results like that should be extremely obvious to replicate. Could this finally be the Holy Grail we've been looking for?
If so, I just hope it doesn't have any snags that will prevent us from actually extracting useful amounts of energy out of it.
It could just be bad reporting, but nickel and hydrogen?
Maybe it's possible with some extreme isotopes of the two, but as far as I can tell, the fusion of nickel and hydrogen is not exothermic.
...is that they don't understand why it works, just that their magic box makes more energy than they put in.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
Also, the site on which this report was published is owned by the authors.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/24/italian-scientists-claim-cold-fusion-breakthrough/?test=faces
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
Heh it's from Bologna. Where are the baloney jokes?
This looked to be more informative commentary...
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/01/19/rossi-and-focardi-lenr-device-probably-real-with-credit-to-piantelli/
But, if it's true, and repeatable by others, well, wouldn't this just solve all our energy problems.
Wouldn't it be great if this was true. I just can't believe it is. If something seams to good to be true.......well normally it is.
"Rossi and Focardi’s paper on the nuclear reactor has been rejected by peer-reviewed journals, but the scientists aren’t discouraged. They published their paper in the Journal of Nuclear Physics, an online journal founded and run by themselves, which is obviously cause for a great deal of skepticism."
Everything about this seems like a scam.
They could have accidentally made a Nickel-Hydrogen battery. A remarkably efficient battery, which itself is pretty useful, but until they provide some concrete evidence that fusion is producing the majority of the power output here (e.g. a high fast-neutron flux), other methods of power production are more likely.
Assuming the device actually works, of course.
Those guys fell from the fraud tree and hit every single branch on the way down:
- Created their own, "serious sounding" journal for publication
- Do not disclose the actual device they claim to have been running
- Do not allow independent observation of the experiment
- Experiment is an open system (making it SO easy to fake)
- Making totally implausible claims that would be too much even if it DID work.
Not only have they yet to prove they did any kind of fusion, they also would not produce energy with the process they claim to do even if they were doing it (trans-iron fusion is not exothermic).
And the really stupid thing is that there will be tons of "sceptics" that have no fucking clue about science that will eat up their claims just because they are "anti-established science". Wankers.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
More out than in = no
Use a lighter for a split second on a piece of paper, then turn it off. Bam. More out than you put in.
Don't we hear a claim like this every few years, just have to it turn out to be false?
The truth is out there! I saw them do this in Russia in an old Val Kilmer/Elisabeth Shue movie about how the cold fusion problem was solved.
It was romantic^n.
Home of The Suki Series
I remember (vaguely) some similar claim being made in Utah back in the 1980's (or was 1990s? I forget).
Anyrate, it was hailed with a big amount of hoopla... until no one else could replicate the results. Then the questions came, and the original scientists couldn't provide a single answer.
Last I checked, Mr. Newton still has the last laugh. There was a bit of 'cold fusion' research awhile back that involved chasing bubble cavitation as a source of energy, but otherwise no one seriously (or rather, no serious scientist) chases that particular dream anymore.
Now if a third party can replicate the results, then maybe it's worth looking into, but until then, I think it can be safely filed under "yeah, right - now pull the other one".
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"...the experiment provides a power gain of 12,400/400 = 31"
Well since the power gain was only 31, it can't possibly be cold fusion.
When they hit '42'....let me know....*goes back to sleep*
Finally someone figured out a way to synthesize copper, so people can stop stealing it from the plumbing of abandoned buildings in Detroit.
The question is how to get rid of all that extra waste energy it releases... Maybe we can shunt it into space somehow?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
It is the salvation of mankind! It is the end of poverty.
Uh, haven't I been here before?
Did they weigh the copper wires to the electrodes before and after?
More out than in = no
It's called rest energy...and they're certainly not getting out more than they put in.
;)
That said, I'm more than a wee bit skeptical that this works. But if it does...well, I'm gonna go long in nickel and short the copper market
No. Free. Lunch.
Io, per esempio, il benvenuto ai nostri signori fusion italiana
They later found that a stopwatch placed inside the box ran for about 1300 times longer than the time elapsed outside the box.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
It would be nice if it was real, but considering the... um... somewhat storied record of cold fusion experiments, I'll retain some skepticism.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Steve jobs or no, if they can shove one of those into an iPad I might just break down and buy one.
Fusion is the Duke Nukem Forever of the physics community.
...cold fusion or any similar energy generating scheme: one day you'll notice that they'll offer to sell large companies electricity at half the market price.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The US Mint been fusing nickel to copper for over 100 years.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
More out than in = no
If they're really starting a fusion reaction, then it's totally plausible. For a practical demonstration, go outside right now and look at that bright thing in the sky.
All the other cold fusion schemes turned out to be bogus, and this one probably will, too, but that doesn't mean it'll never happen.
It's easy to get more out than humans put in. OP is wrong.
Reedeeculous.
The real test of cold fusion would be detecting neutrons, LOTS of them if they were getting kilowatts of heat. I'm too lazy to calculate again how many neutrons, but it's certainly enough to fry everybody in that room.
You'd think after Pons and that Margarine guy made the same dumb mistake, not claiming scads of neutrons, these guys would patch up that hole.
From TFA "Krivit also noted that Rossi has been accused of a few crimes, including tax fraud and illegally importing gold, which are unrelated to his research."
So, my guess is that we got all wrong. The machine works. But it was designed to generate money instead of energy. I also like the part:
"reactor seems similar to a nickel-hydrogen low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) device originally developed by Francesco Piantelli of Siena, Italy, who was not involved with the current demonstration. In a comment, Rossi denied that his reactor is similar to Piantelli’s, writing that 'The proof is that I am making operating reactors, he is not.' "
Yeah. making money reactions.
I can't help but think that the "storied" in this case must be a common mishearing of "sordid".
At least "storied" still makes a little logical sense. It's a lot better than some of the misheard/misunderstood phrases I've seen..
which is totally what she said
"More out than in" is actually not a bad definition of an exothermic reaction. Of course, you're ignoring the whole "converting energy from one form to another" aspect.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Independant replication or it didn't happen.
Er, I live in Vancouver, BC you insensitive clod. What is this strange bright thing in the sky you are talking about?
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
No? Then, I don't believe it.
I seem to remember a similar claim from the late 1980s and the fallout from the claims.
That's important also for Mr.Berlusconi. Cold fusion.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
What about the energy that was stored in the fibers of the paper? It certainly took a lot more energy to grow the trees used in making the paper, hence you are not getting more energy out that you put in.
Correct. Cold fusion isn't a theoretical impossibility, like perpetual motion - it can, in princible, be done. So far though, no scientist or engineer has worked out how to do it. The field is plagued with both deliberate frauds and overeager misinterpretations of results, and so far very little in the way of success.
It hardly matters how it works. It only matters that is does work. Smarter people can then go about figuring out how it works. Let these people make the investment in a factory to build these machines. The DoE can buy one can test it. If it takes nickel and hydrogen and energy and makes copper and 31*energy, then we can all retire or join the United Federation of Planets. Otherwise we are just out a few thousand dollars; money that otherwise would have been spent to kill brown people for Jesus in a foreign land. We are all better off no matter what how it turns out!
but if they are getting more power out than they are putting in, does it really matter if it is truly a fusion reaction or just a complex chemical one? especially if the byproducts of the reaction are not hazardous.
Where are the baloney jokes?
In your pants.
(rimshot)
Thank you!
That's his point. You're getting out more energy than you're putting in electricity in this reaction, but it's combining nuclei into ones at a lower energy level, so it's not magic energy from nothing any more than setting fire to paper is.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I don't totally buy that it is making copper. It could be true, but unlikely. A few things to consider:
Nickel isotopes have high nuclear binding energies. Ni62 has the highest binding energy. Very tough to get a nuclear reaction that produces power out of Ni, impossible from Ni62. Reactions with Ni62 are endothermic.
Copper has 2 stable isotopes. The rest don't last long. Cu63 and Cu65 are stable.
The Ni is ether absorbing or emitting a particle. Ni62 and lower seem like poor candidates. Wrong side of the tracks.
Ni64 could become Cu63 from some sort of fission, but would also be endothermic.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Obviously the energy giants are combining forces to defame the scientists and destroy the technology. What a weekend, Duke Nukem Forever and Cold Fusion both confirmed!!!!
Why am I having the profound sense of dejavu? I suddenly feel like I'm 20 years younger....wandering around Salt Lake City for the elusive Mormon tail at University of Utah.....reading the newspaper about Cold Fusion discoveries. Wait, it was a hoax then. I wonder if it is now? If not....maybe this time I'll finally succeed in doing the deed with a hot college Mormon and flimsy moral standards. ;)
If you recall initial reaction to Albert Einstein papers... Scientific community is very cautious about new discoveries.
On the other note... reading that article it looks like even inventors do not really understand how that work, which is interesting. If that really is fusion, maybe scientific community should retest that in lab as a peer review, instead of rejecting it at the spot. Maybe they are on something... crossing fingers... I want one of those for my lab :))
Hopefully it's repeatable this time.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
So, lots of folks saying both that cold fusion is impossible, and that it would be marked by particular types of activity that were obviously not present in this experiment.
Apart from the internal inconsistency there, perhaps a bit of that cliche', "thinking outside the box" crap is in order? Maybe we just think this experiment is bogus because it doesn't happen the way we think it won't (which sounds silly to say, but is what people are saying...)?
My money is on bogus too, but at some point - while we're already admitting we have no clue either - we have to acknowledge that the answer might end up being something completely unlike that which we were expecting.
they claim to be far along in the process of commercializing their invention.
Since this purportedly releases radiomination, I'd feel a lot more comfortable if they bothered to develop some understanding of what's really going on before selling their gizmos to any gullible Thomas, Richard and Harold who will then radiominate the unsuspecting public.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
For a practical demonstration, go outside right now and look at that bright thing in the sky.
DO NOT STARE AT THAT "BRIGHT THING IN THE SKY"!!!11!!1!
They make some pretty extraordinary claims, if you RTFA. One is that they've had a working reactor going non-stop for two years providing heat to a factory. If this is true, it means that they've effectively kept an almost-free energy producer secret during a period when oil prices shot up by a huge amount. If I'd had such a reactor, I'd have had it connected to a generator and been providing power to the grid.
Fortunately, they say that they'll be shipping commercial devices within three months, making it pretty easy to test their claims: If you don't have a Mr Fusion powering your house next Christmas, their claims were probably bogus.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I thought people in Vancouver wanted to believe? :-)
Anyhow, this smells far too much like Stanley Meyer and similar over-unity scammers. Heck, one of the "inventors" has even been convicted for fraud.
That probably won't stop investors, though. There's one born every minute, who thinks that TISATAAFL
University of Bologna (UNIBO) looks to be a bone-fide establishment, and if so, why can't it bring some serious academic analysis to bear on this experiment (even if it has to invite expertise in from the outside). I suspect this "team" will prove to have little if anything to do with research at that university.
Nullius in verba
Obviously it is a hoax. How can anybody claim that 101 degrees Celsius is cold?
Fortunately, they say that they'll be shipping commercial devices within three months
Yep. The first delivery is already booked for April 1st.
Paid Q&A/Research
Bologna invented universities before sausages.
From WP:
"The word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, roughly meaning "community of teachers and scholars" in Latin countries such as France. The term was coined by the Italian University of Bologna, which, with a traditional founding date of 1088, is considered the first university."
The University of Bologna is the oldest university in the world, founded in 1088, and one of the few good universities left in Italy, specializing in engineering, history and medicine.
However, from what I understand these people are not part of any research group at the University; one of them, Focardi, is just a (now often absent) professor of physics there. He was also a member of a research group in Siena which also claimed they had had a "breakthrough" 15 years ago; and they claimed then that commercial exploitation was 6 months away...
The other "businessman" involved was previously convicted for (unrelated) fraud. To me, it sounds like yet another scam.
-- Let's go Viridian.
The scientists did NOT make the cold fusion claim, this was added later. Frauds or not, they can't be blamed for not doing cold fusion if they never claimed to do that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They're going to be bitching about how hydrogen and nickel are non-renewable, and how this raises the temp of water, which kills the fish ;)
Just kidding. Skeptical, but hope it's true.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
until no one else could replicate the results. ... but otherwise no one seriously (or rather, no serious scientist) chases that particular dream anymore.
This is simply not true. There are many scientists who were able to get similar results -- Navy researchers got a paper published in Naturwissenschaften in 2007, and reported further significant results in 2009 .
As a matter of fact, the American Chemical Society hosted a 2-day conference on the subject at their 239th meeting last year in San Francisco.
What happened is that to avoid the seemingly near-religious 'skepticism' displayed yourself and others, the actual scientists working on the subject had to refer to their results as "anomalous heat" and refer to the field as "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" (LENR) to avoid controversy.
So while you are busy deciding if anyone is replicating the results or if the field is worth looking into, a great deal of serious scientific effort has gone into the field for the last 20 years.
All I need is their cold fusion device, hydrogen and a five cents.
Uwe Boll doesn't have to create plot, only to butcher it.
Nickel is on the wrong side of the curve of binding energy: energy is released from elements heavier than iron by fission, not fusion.
Snake.
Oil.
Of course cold fusion was to be expected any time soon now Duke Nukem Forever will be released...
let's be honest. Einstein gave us a very nice theory, but (so far) nobody can fit his theory with quantum physics. and quantum physics works. and unless you fit your gravity theory with quantum physics, you can't claim to truly understand gravity.
new sig
Correct. Though we are not counting the energy required to create the paper, from growing a tree to processing the paper. But for cold fusion the energy bound up in the atoms being turned into a form humans can use is the point. In creating the atoms, the Universe has done the "heavy lifting" for us. So you are correct in your example, but I just want to point out that the scaled up industrial process must work as well. Getting a full sized reactor running is as important as solving a problem in the lab.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Focardi and Rossi is Italian for Fleishman and Pons.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'm probably not the only geek around here that is old enough to have this bring back memories of the Skylark series by E.E. "Doc" Smith, but there are probably not many.
If one really wanted to keep the technology secret, but still make a profit from it, one could just create an oil "refinery" that makes and sells gasoline. Yes, it might have incoming pipes from an upstream source, but those pipes never have been turned on. The oil is paid for but the upstream seller has never bothered to deliver on it. In reality, the gasoline being sold from the "refinery" would be CO2 pulled out of the air, dumped through a ton of energy expensive chemical processes, and then dumped in the semis ready to haul to the local 7-11 pump. It doesn't matter how expensive energy-wise the reactions would be.
Result: A decent profit, nobody ever the wiser (except the oil seller upstream who has to keep it secret why they sell oil to someone, but in reality they have not even opened the pipeline to deliver a gallon), and definitely nobody would suspect a cheap energy source. Combine it with the energy source powering up the reactor, and one has a carbon-negative business.
Although the reactors can be self-sustaining so that the input can be turned off, the scientists say that the reactors work better with a constant input.
Hmmm. I'll bet. So does my toaster oven. I wonder if these guys also make "Amish" space heaters.
Proverbs 21:19
According to this website nickle has a spot price of ~ USD 11.8 per pound and copper has a spot price of ~ USD 4.36 / pound. http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/nickel_historical_large.html http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html So _if_ this works, it is a type of anti-philosopher's stone: converting an expensive metal into a less expensive one.
Anyone else notice that they are claiming to "produce copper" using Ni in a Copper tube as proof? Seems to me that there's an easier explanation for the copper produced than fusion.
-- Adam McCormick
...for raining on our geek-parade with your "facts" and "history" and such!
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
My sentence was ambiguous. I intended to say that perpetual motion is a theoretical impossibility, while cold fusion is merely something that has yet to be achieved but one day may be.
He said that cold fusion wasn't an impossibility like perpetual motion, and that, unlike perpetual motion, cold fusion can be done.
It was just an awkward sentence.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
What about the energy that was stored in the fibers of the paper? It certainly took a lot more energy to grow the trees used in making the paper, hence you are not getting more energy out that you put in.
Um, yeah, you are getting more any than you put in, unless you personally spent the energy to grow the trees instead of, oh I don't know, letting the sun do it!
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Methinks, perhaps, you misunderstand the principles of grammar... and the meaning that the GP had. In programmers terms the comma binds more tightly than the dash...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Dude. Seriously. How can you be so close to a working fiendish scheme and yet so far? It's like Dr Evil has resurfaced on the web...
While your scheme is feasible won't it be more straightforward to open a power station, import gas/coal/whatever, sell your free power and then resell the fuel through a subsidiary?
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
SuricouRaven isn't saying that perpetual motion can be done, you're parsing the sentance wrong. Read it this way:
"Cold fusion isn't a theoretical impossibility (like perpetual motion). It can, in principle, be done."
In other words, OP is making a distinction between cold fusion and perpetual motion. Perpetual motion is an impossibility, cold fusion is at least in THEORY not impossible.
The sentence could have been parsed better so I can see how you misread it.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
I see your old Val Kilmer/Elisabeth Shue movie and raise you an older Keanu Reeves/Morgan Freeman movie!
Your move.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
They could have accidentally made a Nickel-Hydrogen battery. A remarkably efficient battery, which itself is pretty useful, but until they provide some concrete evidence that fusion is producing the majority of the power output here (e.g. a high fast-neutron flux), other methods of power production are more likely.
Assuming the device actually works, of course.
If they're not lying, they have a production device that's been heating a factory for two years, presumably on a single 220VAC circuit. To do that with a battery would require an incredible amount of deception (sneaking in every night to re-charge it) and an incredible battery.
I think that reduces the scope of the open question to "they're lying", or "they're not lying."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I see your old Val Kilmer/Elisabeth Shue movie and raise you an older Keanu Reeves/Morgan Freeman movie!
Your move.
Val Kilmer is the more romantic one. I would rather be "saved" from the single lab goddess life by him than Reeves.
Home of The Suki Series
goddamned time-travelling trolls are the worst kind.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If you throw a match into the powder room of a pirate ship, the energy output is far more than your energy input. That's because there's a secondary energy input- the powder. The match works as a catalyst to a reaction, much as I assume the 400 W here would (if it works, which I'm guessing it doesn't, but more because it's simply too good to be true, and the guys have been rejected by publications.)
I note they claim its not "cold fusion" but a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction device
Whilst sceptical, I do however ask myself if it is a fraud, why are they doing it? They're fully aware that any claims of producing energy from such a system will be subject to intense examination and a high degree of scepticism.
Pons and Fleischmann remain a laughing stock nearly 2 decades after their cold fusion announcement, so to make a claim in this field definitely requires Balls of Steel and a willingness to stake their reputation on the outcome.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I had the impression that stars stop fusing elements at Iron. After that fusion was an energy loss. All of the heavyer elements we see today are the result of the supernova expolsion after a star dies.
Also. Nickle has two stable isotopes. One with 30 neutrons the other with 36 neutrons. Copper has two stable isotopes one with 34 neutrons and the other with 36 neutrons. if they fused Ni with H there would be no additional neutons from the hydrogen which is just a single proton. If the fusion occured the resulting copper with 30 or 32 neutrons would quickly decay. Copper would not be the by product noticed from the reaction.
This is just another electro chemical reaction or some kind of hocus pocus scam.
no scientist or engineer has worked out how to do it.
I have, you get a chip with small channels and voids through which you pass hydrogen. On that chip are pulsed semiconductor lasers that create 'hot' fusion, on a very small scale. Doing it on a microscopic scale makes the energies manageable.
I am currently working on the funding to build a lab and hire some eggheads to implement the trivial details of my genius idea. I have already identified an ideal site for the laboratory inside an extinct volcano.
Its a great investment opportunity. Want to be on board with the first round of funding?
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
Can someone seriously explain in a simple terms what this means if it is true? From what I understand - cheap(er) energy/electricity? Just how much cheaper that what is available now?
True, a power station would be more straightforward. However, fewer people would consider that a fuel refinery would actually be running a cheap energy source in the basement than a power station. The trick is to use a pipeline as opposed to actual freight shipping, so nobody is the wiser that the pipeline has not has anything run through it. Easier on the books that way.
There are plenty of other places where people wouldn't be looking for a man behind the curtain: Even a data center which sits in the middle of nowhere with several 120VAC connections to the grid (need that redundancy) might be plausible, assuming someone who isn't versed in electricity doesn't show up and wonder how a few 480VAC transformers (that have not been touched since a mobile home park necessitated their installation in the 1970s) are handling the complete load of a facility using 20-30 megawatts.
The addition of protons to any nucleus from iron upwards is endothermic. Nickel is heavier than iron, so it's not possible to have a net gain in energy.
As soon as a heavy star begins to make iron in its core, it collapses into a supernova because there is no outward pressure from nuclear fusion.
It's not more out than in. The fusion reaction produces the big out.
A cold-fusion breakthrough is one where you generate more from the reaction, than it takes to maintain the furnace.
The problem with fusion is that it has taken more power to get to reacting temperatures, than can be produced, and the Italians are claiming that this can be achieved.
I suspect that this is done by siphoning heat from the flames that erupt from Silvio Berlusconi.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
She decides what's hot and what's not.
that was just to see if you were paying attention. ;)
I love to slaughter the english language.
Your logic is bad and you should feel bad!
This one is suspiciously similar to the Blacklight Power claims.
I should have used mass instead of binding energy for fusion (lots of nickel isotopes, so tried to take a shortcut). My information was correct, but conclusions wrong. I looked at mass for fission, so was at least half right.
Sorry.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
the one hazardous byproduct: incredulity
OMG, what are we going to do with all that copper!?
Better take some lessons in maniacal laughing, so your volcanic lair doesn't seem out-of-place.
...I just want to point out that the scaled up industrial process must work as well. Getting a full sized reactor running is as important as solving a problem in the lab.
Please get out of the trap of thinking of power as necessarily a multi-billion-dollar centralized utility. For many of the world's current and potential electricity users, a closet-sized user-serviceable generation plant with 3-4 kWh output (whether by solar, hydrogen, fission, or fusion) would be "full sized" for their needs, and also a step up in sustainability and reliability. To be fair, even the regulators, finance, and insurance people fall into this trap as industrial giants like Babcock & Wilcox and Toshiba keep getting railroaded on their advanced micro fission reactors.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
im having trouble reading parents post as i was just outside staring at the bright thing in the sky. could someone type it in all caps to make it easier for me to read?
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
I'd mod you up if I could. rocking observation.
This winter has at least been better than most...I think I saw the sun 4 times!
..unlike perpetual motion, cold fusion can be done.
It's probably a bit more accurate to say that cold fusion has not been proven to be impossible
Actually, to my knowledge, there is no reason to think that cold fusion has or every will work. It's a claim without solid theory behind it, no?
Currently hooked on AMP
can you site references for your claim that the xxx person is a fraud, usually we do not post defamation statements, unless we can back them up.
At this point, I just ignore Slashdot posts about cold fusion -- except, of course, for the time it takes to tell everyone that I ignore them.
that way, you can confirm your observation.
Professor Levi from UNIBO, that helped settle up the experiment, says that probably there is some new physics that are involved in the experience, and even them have only a theoretical explanation of what really happens inside the machine. The machine itself is under patent, that's why we don't know anything of its insides. Besides from that, at the experience attend (as an example) prof Paolo Capiluppi, member of italian institute of nuclear, director of Physics dept of Bologna, some sort of role at LHC. So we're not talking about some drunk people that pretend to have solved all our energetic problems. The fact that they aren't disclosing data is a shame, for me, but as long as they are researching on their own without money from university and stuff, they can do whatever they want with their work. Think we need an English version of videos for people to get less skeptical about this.
Cold fusion is a _BIG_ orgasm. Just look at it: billions of tiny protons trying to break that electrostatic barrier that surrounds one big Ni nucleus and fecundate it into a cooper that after it's infancy will grow into another Ni nucleus. And the cycle repeats ad infinitum. (primera demonstrandum) So in other words if it is Bologna then it is University then it is sex. (seconda demonstrandum) This is not a coincidence.
Not so much logic as "I learned just enough about thermodynamics to prove that the sun can't work".
Not a typewriter
To Quote a Famous Greenie Paul Elrich: "Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun."
Hey Billy, here is an AK-47, try not to fill the neighbor's cat full of holes and play nice now ok....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Maybe.... It depends on what the efficiency of the process is, and whether it's more efficient than current power-generation reactions. And, as you said, whether there are hazardous by-products.
So take a bunch of Nickel and powerize it and pack it into a casing then use a C-4 powered injector to inject the Hydrogen gas into the powderized Nickel at supersonic velocity.
Ka-Blooey!!!! And you don't have to fiddle around with refining Uranium.....
Plus none of that pesky fallout.....
This is the last thing the world needs...
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
If this does end up working then these guys have solved two major problem concerning our technologic society in one fell swoop.
But eventually we will run out of Nickel and will have to mine Asteroids which contain... Nickel!!!
Yay! I hope this is true....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Southerners!
Head up to the Nordic countries...
Actually, Einstein figured it out. It is the warping of space caused by an object.
Great. What's space?
We use it to mean a coordinating medium (everything is within "space" and so, all being contained in the same area, they interact instead of passing through each other). Why is that warpable? Does the space have an equivalent of mass or energy (volume perhaps) that would have to be conserved, and if so, where is it going? If it doesn't have any such inertial equivalent, why does space only warp in the presence of mass--if physically speaking, there is no incentive not to warp?
He gave us an idea, but it's not an explanation until certain key questions are answered.
There's certainly theory behind it... Two atoms (generally hydrogen) combine into a heavier element, and in the process some minute portion of their mass is converted directly into energy. We've even accomplished that part in limited circumstances (i.e. Hydrogen Bombs). The fiendishly tricky part is balancing the inputs and the outputs to the reaction to keep it going while keeping the whole thing cool enough that the reaction doesn't go out of control (i.e. "Cold Fusion")
I don't know of any chemical reactions that yield copper from nickel...
You are just describing "hot fusion." The concept of "cold fusion" is a fairy tale. I didn't say there is no theory behind it, I said there is no solid theory behind it, by which I meant a framework for understanding how it could occur in reality.
Currently hooked on AMP
Rossi and Focardi are taking cues from Fleischmann & Pons.
C for example
#include
main()
{
int i;
int part_the_first = 42;
int part_the_second = 99;
int part_the_third = 100;
i = part_the_first, part_the_second - part_the_third;
printf( "the answer to (etc) is: %d\n", i );
}
I call BS.
For every nickel atom converted to copper, you need about 4 additional neutrons to make stable copper (they state there is no left over radioactivity). Where are those coming from? Those are probably harder to get than shoving the single proton into the nucleus, which is hard enough!
Not plausible. But repeatable results by independent investigators is always plausible. And they don't have that either.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
it is important to try to understand what is going on, but once again, what difference is it if it is fusion or some chemical reaction, as long as more power comes out of it than is put in?
if it is chemical we call it a battery, and if it can last 6 months like they mention and would be able to cheaply power my house or car then i say "wahoo!"
if it is indeed some sort of nuclear reaction, then great.
if however they are frauds and faking the whole then then they really should be flogged.
> Bologna invented universities before sausages.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that sausage making somehow evolved from university administration...
Log in or piss off.
Pfft... it's no new thing. See all the CFM files in this folder?
It's called baloney.
Southerners!
Head up to the Nordic countries...
He's complaining about the rain, not the length of the day.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
Wrong, perpetual motion wont work.
neither do i, but i don't think we have enough info to determine if it is chemical, nuclear, or a fake. (maybe their paper which i haven't read would give some information) maybe there is a fitting somewhere that could be the source of copper and they neglected to account for it...
the problem is their paper was rejected because they themselves didn't have a proper theory as to how it worked, which is a bit troubling. and so we won't really know what is going on or if it is real until someone else can repeat their experiment and then people start analyzing what is going on.
I'm curious how they can get more energy out than they put in, at the same time as getting more MASS out than they put in. Copper is more than just a proton heavier than Nickel (63au vs 56au, I think). Conservation of energy/mass, anyone? Hydrogen+hydrogen fusion produces energy because the resulting helium is lighter than the inputs, and E=mc^2.
Bravery is not a function of firepower.
~J.C. Denton (Deus Ex)
Here's the same video with English subtitles
Click on CC mark to show subtitles.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Seems to me this is the entire point of all modern power systems, getting access to the stored potential energy in various stuff. Whether that "stuff" is dead organic matter (coal, wood, oil), light, atoms, or chemicals. In all cases we are getting more out of it than we put into it. There's no such thing as a free lunch, the energy comes from somewhere, but we don't have to produce it, just get at it. The problem we're having is that there's a limited quantity of most of the easiest and most popular "stuff" that contains a lot of potential energy. We're running out (whatever your opinion on *when* we'll run out I don't think anyone is delusional enough to think there is infinite oil in the ground). Things like nuclear (fusion or fission), solar, geothermal, wind... All of them are harder, and some much less efficient than burning stuff, but they have the advantage of being effectively infinite (yes, they are finite too, but for practical purposes we could never use all of them up).
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
However, the usage of bologna/baloney for nonsense derives from the university, not the sausage (which is known in Italy as mortadella, BTW). Bologna university used to be known mostly as a law university in the modern era, and as always through times lawyers have always been full of crap.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
usually we do not post defamation statements, unless we can back them up.
Umm... you must be confused. This is Slashdot.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Be sure and read the directions carefully. The mirrors need to be polished daily. Smoke modules need to be replaced every three months, and the snake oil should not be allowed to fall below 3/4 full.
And never, ever, feed it after midnight.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
TFA mentions an accusation of tax fraud.
It really doesn't matter if it works or not, the world's economy will not allow it work. Oil and the world's economy are so intertwined, that if this were to actually work, it would have ramifications across the globe. It would not happen overnite, but the way technology progresses, in a few years, our need for oil will be drastically reduced. Actually, it would not be just oil, any other energy source would potentially be affected. It's great that there are people out there trying to develop new energy sources, but it's really futile at this point. Again, the world's economy will allow it to progress.
Bright thing? Balderdash! Rumor and hearsay only, my good man. Some call it "the sun" - some sort of fusion device that generates "free energy." Pay it no mind.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Cold fusion can be done, easily and reliably: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion
What we don't have is any way to do it that isn't ludicrously expensive, burning through catalyst almost as fast as fuel.
What these guys claim to have discovered is a nuclear reaction heretofore unknown to science.
What a scientist does when discovering something like this (or if they truly think they have) is to set up a closely controlled demonstration of the phenomenon that carefully documents the physical conditions, and all of the measurable evidence associated with the reaction.
Turning nickel into copper? Amazing! Forget all the boiling water stuff, the commercial power production claims, etc. - lets just see a reproducible experiment of nickel being turned into copper on any scale. They don't even need a theoretical explanation - a good experiment opens the door to theorists galore. Theorists love unexplained experiments - that are real.
Was high temperature superconductivity ignored because there was no theory that explains it (and there still isn't an adequate one)? No!
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
neither do i, but i don't think we have enough info to determine if it is chemical, nuclear, or a fake. ...or a heat pump. If it's running on directed energy rather than heat as a source, gotta make sure it isn't drawing that heat from the ground underneath it or something. Though if the stated figures were correct, I think 31x is outside the thermodynamic limit for a 20C to 101C heat push.
Someone had to do it.
This is no different then coal, lumber, hydro, or any other form of power generation. you're saying that if you take a material that has a huge amount of potential energy and cause it to undergo a reaction that consumes that fuel, it can perform work.
in your lighter example, give me a functional use of the process. in any long term reaction, you'll eventually run out of fuel and have to start using the energy you released to bind new fuel at a net loss.
thus, you can only release as much energy as you put into a system, but likely you only get a portion of that energy while your process itself consumes a portion.
This would be great, but let's face it, without independent verification, it's like Harry Potter 12, people want it, but it's not likely.
I like how they say they've been using a unit to heat a factory for two years, but won't identify the factory, much less let it be examined. Just like the alien spaceship I keep hidden in my secret vault, but I can't tell you where lest the aliens get mad at me...
Even if it's fake, they'll sell a few units in 3 months, if they actually do ship on time.
As to them not being able to describe the physics involved in the process, that's not so strange. Unfortunate, but feasible. There have been many discoveries throughout history that the discoverers didn't understand until much later, but that never stopped anyone from taking advantage of them. I'm glad they didn't try to use some scientific technobabble double speak to try and say that "something" is happening and this is how it usually occurs "this way" but not with our process and we really don't know what's going on here. There have been plenty of others that have done that in the past.
Wonder how small a complete unit that can power a decent quality car would be. That would be really nice.
Open loop instead of closed... They are going to have to fix that before anyone will take them seriously.
We already went over this on Fark, it's old news. In TFA, they say (waving hands) that the reaction works BETTER when there is a constant input of energy. If they had a sustainable reaction they could plug the output into the input BUT EVEN THEY SAY they can't do this. They need constant input. This is clearly a major red flag. Also, they are only accepting "serious requests" from "investors willing to purchase" ...
This is a load of horse turd from some charlatans.
tl;dr, troll 0/10
"Cold" fusion means using a low-energy input to make the fusion happen - of course the result of the fusion is output heat. Muon-catalyzed cold fusion is quite straightforward, but takes more input power (to make the muons) than you get output power. If you had some trick to prevent muon decay, cold fusion would be pretty easy (of course, there would be far more cool things you could do if you knew the trick of altering subatomic particle decay rates).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Exactly which part of "making the bank" was based on creating free electricity out of thin air?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
How do you arrive at that conclusion? The extra proton comes from the hydrogen. One less water proton -> one proton heavier isotope. Although that does raise the question as to what source nickel isotope(s) they're using, since the most abundant nickel isotope is Ni-58, and Cu-59 only has a half-life of 81.5 seconds. The only persistent copper would come from Ni-62 (3.5%) and Ni-64 (0.9%). Most of the nickel would form transient copper isotopes which would then spawn decay chains (I seem to have lost my nucleonica account at the moment, or I'd check to see the net result).
In general: I'm not about to declare "Cold Fusion Is Impossible!", but I think these people are a long way from passing the burden of proof.
"I can get my own men." "Yeah, you better go check your traps."
... forever. Is it more likely than cold fusion? I mean, both are theoretical, promise good things for mankind, and have a spotty past filled with false promises and dashed hopes. I am guessing we see a Duke sequel before we see a perpetual energy source, but that's me looking on the bright side.
Wait. Stop scrolling for a sec. O.K. Thanks. - P
Copper would be one of the easiest contaminants to get in such a system, since copper wiring, heat exchangers, and so forth are so common. Copper is also a common contaminant in impure metals, and even tap water (due to copper pipes).
And has any third party actually evaluated their copper-generation claims? We know that they haven't passed peer review.
"I can get my own men." "Yeah, you better go check your traps."
Plus, unlike Reeves, if Val Kilmer is trapped in a cardboard box, he can at least act his way out of it.
"I can get my own men." "Yeah, you better go check your traps."
a fellow named Edison found 10,000 things that didn't work before he found just one that did.
Think about it.
Like the inimitable Groucho Marx, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
* Buy a bunch of nickle
* Short a bunch of copper
* Announce you have a device that makes electricity and copper from Nickle
* Sell your shares
* Make energy by burning stacks of $100 bills
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm not a physicist, but I dimly recall that elements with a lower atomic number than iron release energy via fusion while elements with a higher atomic number release energy via fission. Since nickel's atomic number is 28 (iron's is 26) and copper's is 29, surely you have to add energy to convert nickel to copper?
Aha! According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_capture, "Nuclei of masses greater than 56 cannot be formed by thermonuclear reactions (i.e. by nuclear fusion),". Copper has an atomic weight of over 63.5, so this is snake-oil.
Heh it's from Bologna. Where are the baloney jokes?
Cold-Cut Fusion?
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt = [citation required]
I'm no physicist, but isn't there a sort of "energy from nothing" in every single automobile on the planet in the form of an alternator? If you overlook the engine turning the alternator around for a moment, where does the energy that the alternator generates to keep your battery charged come from? And, more importantly, why doesn't it get used up? If you could convince a monkey to turn your alternator for ya, you'd have some free energy...
No, they're describing fusion, period. Traditional hot fusion is a particular subset of that, in which the method to combine the nuclei (not atoms) involves heating them up to great temperatures in a maxwellian plasma, so that the nuclei with the highest energies (far higher than the average energy of the plasma) can fuse. There are also some less pursued hot fusion methods involving non-maxwellian plasmas.
Cold fusion is fusion in which there is no bulk plasma at all (although in some approaches it is theorized to exist at extremely small scales). More often, the idea is that you use an alternative method to overcome or reduce the coulomb barrier. For example, one hypothesized method of cold fusion is that under certain conditions, electrons are "dressed" with extra mass by quasiparticles (such as phonons), leading them to act like muons and catalyze fusion events by dramatically reducing the covalent bond length.
Just because there is no definitive explanation for a phenomenon doesn't mean that it does not exist. We still don't have a complete, definitive explanation for high temperature superconductivity, but there's no doubt that it exists -- and there are a number of competing theories. There are lots of competing theories for how cold fusion would work which cannot be ruled out at this time -- many of them no more exotic than our theories of high temperature superconductivity (or even the accepted mechanism behind low-temperature superconductivity). At the same time, the evidence is subject to many different interpretations. The DOE's viewpoint on the subject is that research should continue to explain the anomalies, but no major projects should be launched.
"I can get my own men." "Yeah, you better go check your traps."
you could just as well claim it's an infinite power gain, or an infinite power loss. any number is unproveable. to me, it looks like they're trying to make gin.
add in no neutrons, no detectors, and no theories, and it's basically a news event to try and whip up some quick funds. this time, instead of government agencies, it's sales of prototypes to the masses. quick, buy the address lists of the Nigerian scammers, there's your target audience.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
That is the case for alpha particles, but you can go on from iron quite a ways exothermically when adding protons.
This is great news! All that extra copper will drive down the price and a penny will no longer cost more than $0.01 to produce. It may only have a small impact on the federal budget deficit, but every little bit helps.
If I had a nickel for every time I heard about a new "working" fusion reactor.... well, if this thing does actually work, I would be rich!
Time to take out a loan and invest in nickel futures! ;)
The german consumer protection portal esowatch has already written an article about them highlighting the dubious history of Mr. Rossi and linking several articles that debunk the claims. http://esowatch.com/ge/index.php?title=Focardi-Rossi-Energiekatalysator
I looked him up as well, a couple of days ago (when I saw TFA), and 'tis true. Google him.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
You're also forgetting whatever they are using for a medium to suspend it (ie - it's not in a vacuum?) That means there's also air, maybe water, and by the look of it, glass for the container, in the mix, which can possibly help to contribute. The real issue is, though, how fast does it use up the nickel (this appears to be a simple reaction instead of actual cold fusion) and is it cheaper than other power methods? If we're talking about hundreds of watt-hours for a pound of nickel, maybe it's viable. If it's, as I suspect, going to cost several dollars per KWH, then you might as well really be just burning wood as others have suggested.
The lack of industrial grade shielding in the lab suggests a simple reaction versus actual fusion, which would likely irradiate the entire room to certainly lethal levels. I know I wouldn't attempt to make such a machine without preparing a safe and radiation-resistant vessel.
Still, converting one element into another is a neat trick, even if it's not necessarily what they claim it to be. That's potentially more interesting in fact than the OP's article, it it is true.(and if it actually produces a stable isotope)
Most certainly no. If someone thinks I'm wrong, then the remedy is obvious. Have the machine reviewed by a lot of people. If Stephen Hawking, Phil Plait, and Paris Hilton all say it works, then I'll believe it too.
Does "Its Hot" mean "it works?"
As a fellow lower mainlander, I think I got very lucky on December 26, at 10:12 am. I saw very bright light from the above me, that looked eerily similar to what's being described. However, since it only lasted a minute, I was unable to confirm.
On a positive note, others have told me that this bright light does in fact happen once a year, there's just no way to predict when.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go outside and take a shower before I swim to work.
Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity!
Maybe It has been mistranslated and they are talking about Sheldon Cooper
It's the strange lighted ball that appears for much of the first week of August almost always coinciding with the Abbotsford Air Show.
Not when I went there! :) Probably 1970-71 or thereabouts. It rained most of the time, overcast 1000 feet all the time. A good part of the crowd huddled under the wings of a C-5A during much of the show, to watch the proceedings while keeping more-or-less dry. Many of the flight demos were curtailed in various ways, since the crowd couldn't see anything above 1000 ft.
The big event was supposed to be low-speed and 'high-speed' fly-by's of the SR-71 Blackbird. It did in fact show up. They announced it was leaving San Francisco, and it arrived something like 40 minutes later - not bad for 800 miles or so. The low speed fly-by was slow enough that the thing had to go by at a fairly steep angle of attack. It was thunderous. The 'high-speed' fly-by (still at parking lot speed compared to its actual capability) culminated by going vertical in front of the stand. This was extremely loud and really impressive, except that it disappeared into the clouds almost immediately.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
From my reading about this last weekend, the copper isotope issue is the biggest red flag, according to 'folks who seem to know something about this'.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Researching this weekend, I found that there are fusion processes that do not require zillions of degrees. For example, 'Muon-catalyzed fusion', which might actually be a good power source if some way to create muons cheaply could be found. See here.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Check out the Navy's experiments, and the article in Wired. Wired paid a skeptical physicist to go and investigate. He came back saying, "There's something going on." He went from 1% confidence to 99% confidence that excess heat was being generated - sometimes. The Navy found that for unknown reasons batches of Palladium from some sources worked (produced an excess of heat, plus other signs such as fusion products) as much as 70% of the time, others 30% of the time, and others never.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
That said, I'm more than a wee bit skeptical that this works. But if it does...well, I'm gonna go long in nickel and short the copper market ;)
I haven't RTFA, but what are the chances that the copper coming out is a stable isotope?
Maybe hang on to your copper shares until you find out :)
Thanks for the clarification -- the OP was right!
Currently hooked on AMP
This comment has been deleted
Oh that's not a problem -- I'm into ultra high frequency trading ;)
this is not cold fusion... this is fusion on a scale small enough to be cooled with water.
That's exactly what cold fusion is: fusion on a scale small enough to be operated at near-room-temperature. Since the product of fusion is heat, yes, that obviously means you have to cool it, genius.
Call me when it's repeatable in more than 2 other labs please.
Unlikely any time soon (even assuming it works just fine).
They applied for a patent. The Italian patent office demanded that they provide a scientific theory to support their claimed mechanism before they'd consider granting the patent (rather than just patenting the design and claims).
To get scientists to reproduce it in the lab and (if it works) come up with a plausible theory, they'd have to disclose all the engineering (including all the ingredients of the "secret sauce"), without patent protection. And the scientists will not be interested unless they can in turn publish them with their own results. So if it does work the whole world will be racing them to market with their own design but without their development and research costs.
So (they say) they're keeping their process a trade secret - to the point of shutting it down when one of the observing scientists, in violation of the agreement, switched his gamma detector from count to energy-histogram mode (which would have given him details on what was going on inside the device.)
So maybe they're crooks. Or maybe they're just some engineers who got it to work repeatably and practically without a full and correct model of the physics. But don't hold your breath waiting for somebody in a couple labs to come out with a replication. That seems unlikely unless/until some physicists reinvent it.
And with the dominant paradigm, after the original cold fusion flap, being that "there's nothing behind the curtain", efforts on reproduction will likely be few and underfunded unless/until they DO ship a working product.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
it's useful in for loops:
///...
for(int i = 0, j = 20; i < j; i++, j--)
{
}
Call me when they can attach a generator to it, hook the output up to the input, and keep it running by just putting in cold water and getting steam.
For the mode they claim to be demoing and intending to ship as the first model, there's enough heat at a high enough temperature that you could use considerably less than all of it to drive a heat engine and generator to get the excitation.
They also claim they can run it both much hotter and/or in a mode where the run-time excitation requirements are absent - but that they're demoing it and promising first product in this mode because it's easier to keep it under control and safe, while still beating the economics of an electrically-powered heat pump by a factor of several.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If this is real, don't worry about shorting copper. The radiation involved in this reaction (not to mention the small amounts of copper being produced) will irradiate the copper and as a product of nuclear fusion itself, may well be the extremely long lived radioactive isotope of copper. I know one university had a cyclotron accident that caused them to brick up a wall of the office portion of the building for a _long_ time while the radiation from the various copper alloys (brass) coinage, etc. cooled down. I am not sure of the nuclear chemistry going on in this particular reaction, but don't expect the output is benign and harmless. This could be a methodology to crank out really messy waste products (in very very small quantities, but even so the average cobalt 60 source that is very deadly if encountered unshielded is a really small amount of material.
...
...
Fission - dirty by products - heads to iron
Fusion - in general just as dirty - heads to iron
Hydrogen Fusion - Pretty clean and useful by products -
Just 'cuz its fusion doesn't make it clean
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Take delivery from the upstream supplier but have a yield higher than is possible from the upstream supplier. File patents on the foo-process used to increase yield and then hold the oil companies hostage financially. One by one as they license your technology, which you through the terms of the licensing own the refinery apparatus used, your organization services, and your staff operates. Call me. We can do lunch.
-- Hank Scorpio, CEO, Globex Corporation
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I've seen the following, to avoid adding curly braces around the body of an existing one-liner condition/loop (especially for temporary debugging code):
if (1)
x(), y();
The comma also applies in constructors, specifying the order(?) and parameters with which member variable initializations will be called, before the constructor body.
Of course, the better way to go about this would perhaps have been to send detailed plans and experimental records to colleagues at other universities and ask that they try to replicate it.
Then if it DOES work:
- the physicists work out the mechanism
- their competitors work out a better design
- and their business plan is toast.
If they were just scientists trying to get their names recognized and grants and tenure this would be fine. But they claim they've got a marketable product, they apparently don't understand the physics of it well enough to be sure there isn't some variation that's orders of magnitude more competitive, and the patent offices won't grant them patent protection until after the physics is worked out (and even then it wouldn't cover later improvements or unrelated designs by others).
So don't hold your breath waiting for them to destroy their own business by leaking the trade secrets to satisfy academics' curiosity. If they really DO have something and DO ship it, the market will likely reward them. Then the physicists will have the hints needed to work out the physical processes behind it eventually.
And if it's all just a scam the device will never be deployed and we can all continue hunting for something that DOES work.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Solar powered wood stoves FTW!
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
There isn't any known physics to exploit to allow cold fusion, with the exception of muon catalyzed fusion (more on that later). This isn't the same as saying its impossible, but it makes it very unlikely. There is just no known way to overcome the Columb barrier except with kinetic energy or extreme pressure. The kinetic energy would either require high temperatures (hot fusion), or some sort of particle beam. The fusion cross sections are so low that particle beam fusion doesn't generate net energy - the incident particles lose too much energy in random collisions for each time fusion happens. Fusion induced by high pressure would require near neutron-star conditions, much more difficult to achieve than hot fusion.
There is no reason to think that chemistry should affect fusion - the electron density close to the nucleus just isn't affected that much by external chemistry.
Muon catalyzed fusion does work (you can use negative muons to cause the fusion of low temperature hydrogen atoms), but the energy released by the fusion is less than what is required to create the muons (counting the number of fusions catalyzed in a muon lifetime, and the probability of the muons getting "stuck" to the helium nuclei). Its really tantalizing because the numbers aren't that far from break even, but people have been looking at this since 1957 and there just doesn't seem to be any way to make this work.
For the original article here - they provided no claim of what physics is going on, and no diagram of their apparatus. The apparatus is large enough to have a hidden energy source to fool the tests. I am also made suspicious by the very careful description of the measurement of the heat released (not required when the output is >10X the input) which looks like a distraction from the other huge unknowns in the problem. (for example a flowmeter is a much more accurate method than a scale to measure the hydrogen use).
I'd love to believe there is a simple practical clean energy source, but this looks a lot like a fraud to me.
Ignore Edison spending truckloads of money to turn Tesla into the poster boy for mad science and then the furthur subversion of that turning him into a mythical being. He was a real human being pushing at the limits of his field and there is no reason to make him look either mad or supernaturally all knowing simply because he thought things were a little different to what later researchers found over time. A permanent lightning storm at the antipode of Tesla's oscillator would have been one known nasty side effect but that wasn't really clear until later. Besides, the stuff he developed that we use all the time is even weirder (Earth return sounds pretty much like magic if it isn't described carefully, then there's radio).
"Free energy" is of course all over the place but it's not free to get to it. One old column in Scientific American told you how to use the electrical potential difference between a kite in fine weather and the ground to move a little motor made from a couple of sheets of polyvinylacetate. It's not supernatural, but it's not much per unit area and it's not so easy to use it. Now take that and consider if somebody had only just discovered the ionosphere - that's what Tesla was getting excited about. You don't get things right all of the time moving into the dark from the cutting edge.
The second thing is that you don't find out if stuff is real or not by unrelated stuff in a similar field (eg. putting up that the navy is also doing stuff), but instead by trying exactly the same stuff to see if there are external factors or even if people are lying. There have also been some truly spectacular frauds over the last couple of decades.
One of the first experiments at Bologna was the attempt to transmute metal into gold, which ultimately failed. Fortunately the experiment produced a number of pink fleshy tubes joined together at the ends and smelling faintly of pig. Unfortunately, the university mascot ran off with the links and the students were never able to repeat their experiment for others, so Bologna remains to this day more famous for it's university than it's meaty creations, or it's ability to repeat experiments.
I'm immediately skeptical because he says no hydrogen is consumed in the process. Is the hydrogen a catalyst only? And if he found a way to produce fusion with no secondary radiation production, this would be all over the news all over the world.
The equation must balance and this just doesn't seem plausible.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
I was basing it on the average atomic weight of each element, in the first periodic table that came up on Google. It's been a while since my last chemistry class (11 years, I think), so I may have gotten it wrong.
But it looked like, since they said there were no radioactive byproducts of the reaction, that they were talking about the most stable (and therefore common) isotopes of each. Therefore, Ni-58 and Cu-63, resulting in an atomic weight difference of 5, which means they need to create 4 neutrons out of thin air.
But, like I said, high-school chemistry was a while ago.
Bravery is not a function of firepower.
~J.C. Denton (Deus Ex)
Not sure whether to call Pons and Fleishman or Phineas and Ferb.
Huh? The correct process is for independent reproduction of the experiment. If that doesn't happen then "so what". If it confirms it then I would be interested. However, nickel is not a substance I would like as a fuel. Even in the unlikely event that this process is valid then it seems a very impractical technology. As it stands that is. But at the moment it doesn't stand, it is just a claim. Wake me when there are multiple confirmations.
Bitter and proud of it.
"lawyers have always been full of crap"
So have sausages, coincidence?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
" To me, it sounds like yet another scam."
I don't know about that, when it fails to materialise it can be used to fuel NWO conspiracy theories.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
But isn't fusion and fission basically just that? I mean except that one is in use and considered dirty while the other is considered cost prohibitive because of the amount of energy investment we have to throw at it to maintain it safely.
The magic here isn't the same as setting paper on fire, it's that we can now do it for about the same costs of setting the paper on fire.
Can you lend me some sunblock?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle#Climate
Take your conspiracy theories at face value.
What would the asking price be?
GE couldn't afford it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
> Great. What's space?
;-)
Hmm, lets see. If TIME is what the physicists invented to keep everything from happening all at once, then SPACE must be what physicists invented to keep everything from happening all at the same place. There, problem solved.
Funnily enough, when I read TFA, there was an ad at the bottom for these.
Needless to say I was instantly dubious.
I don't therefore I'm not.
No actually they said,
which considering E=mc^2, and the "thingy" is putting only putting out 12.4 Kw thermal, you would expect the hydrogen consumption to be minuscule if it was indeed nuclear. A chemical reaction putting out 12.4 Kw thermal would definitely consume measurable amounts of hydrogen.
I'm not sure what they are actually doing but it's interesting, if nothing else it's like watch a stage magician and trying to figure out how he fooled you into seeing something impossible.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Two slashdot posts by me on general problems with research and peer review:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1932134&cid=34740048
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1932134&cid=34740098
Others stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour
"In the laboratory, Latour and Woolgar observed that a typical experiment produces only inconclusive data that is attributed to failure of the apparatus or experimental method, and that a large part of scientific training involves learning how to make the subjective decision of what data to keep and what data to throw out. To an untrained outsider, Latour and Woolgar argued the entire process resembles not an unbiased search for truth and accuracy but a mechanism for ignoring data that contradicts scientific orthodoxy."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15/drug-companies-doctorsa-story-of-corruption/?pagination=false
"The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."
http://www.webscription.net/p-236-kicking-the-sacred-cow.aspx
"Galileo may have been forced to deny that the Earth moves around the Sun; but in the end, science triumphed. Nowadays science fearlessly pursues truth, shining the pure light of reason on the mysteries of the universe. Or does it As bestselling author James P. Hogan demonstrates in this fact-filled and thoroughly documented study, science has its own roster of hidebound pronouncements which are Not to be Questioned. Among the dogma-laden subjects he examines are Darwinism, global warming, the big bang, problems with relativity, radon and radiation, holes in the ozone layer, the cause of AIDS, and the controversy over Velikovsky. Hogan explains the basics of each controversy with his clear, informative style, in a book that will be fascinating for anyone with an interest in the frontiers of modern science."
One hopes that eventually science is self-correcting, but can that sometimes take centuries?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I believe them, because I've created a perpetual motion machine. It's really simple, I repeatedly say "LOOK! What the HELL is THAT!" and when everyone looks away I give it another push!
"We remain regretfully fusion-free."
Except for cheap solar power from the fusion plant in the sky (the sun) with widespread USA grid parity from PV expected by many in the next few years. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2008/2169588.htm
One big thing I see about this demo, if is it true, given the continuing progress of solar/wind/etc and batteries and energy efficiency, is that cold fusion could power advanced vehicles like flying cars or ion-drive spacecraft. Or even mobile robots. Rocketry might be the biggest beneficiary though, and we might start seeing trips to the Moon becoming common in a decade or so and the beginning of space habitats? Once we are on the Moon again, we can mine H3 for other fusion techniques.
Mining on Earth for nickel can still be ecologically disruptive, and it is not clear how much nickel is needed in practice for each generator even if only a small part of it fuses (is the rest poisoned or can it be reformed?). I'm not sure of the relative impacts of nickel mining per watt vs. renewables though, and renewables themselves take mining of various sorts for the materials. I'd think the ecological advantage would be in favor of the cold fusion though, at least as far as using up ready supplies of nickel?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
FTA "They note that no radiation escapes due to lead shielding, and no radioactivity is left in the cell after it is turned off, so there is no nuclear waste."
Yeah right that alone set off my Hookey-meter,
If these guys are really using lead shielding and have had "one reactor has been running continuously for two years, providing heat for a factory", their kids are going to look like Blinky the three eyed fish swimming in the lake behind the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
No fair!!! If I wanted something accurate, insightful, and relevant I wouldn't be on the internet now would I!!! Please leave me alone so I can go back to my bistromathmatics.
Be Excellent To Each Other
Obviously, they had to do experiments in academic way before they invented the sausage... experimental method, repeatable results... the university had to come before the sausage... though I am not sure what came first the chicken, the egg, or the university ;)... maybe the university was invented by a chicken who crossed the road... mmm, very deep questions, I'll have to ponder a little on that :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
I posted to this to Andrea Rossi's website, and I'll post it again here in case that site ever goes down (with some added links and some typos fixed):
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=360&cpage=6#comment-20270
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:33 AM
Andrea-
When Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons made their original cold fusion announcement, I sent them a copy of the book "Midas World". It is a collection of science-fiction short stories by Frederik Pohl on some of the socioeconomic implications of cheap fusion energy. It includes a funny satirical story called "The Midas Plague", originally published in 1954. Wikipedia has a page on the book, which reads in part: "... in this new world of cheap energy, robots are overproducing the commodities enjoyed by mankind. So now the 'poor' are forced to spend their lives in frantic consumption, so that the 'rich' can live lives of simplicity." In that imaginary world, only the "rich" get to have small homes, to eat plain food, and to work a lot both to help other people and to tend their small gardens; the "poor" are condemned to living in mansions, to eating vast amounts of fancy food, to being entertained endlessly, and they are not allowed to do meaningful work for others or themselves -- all to make an old-fashioned scarcity-based economic model still work out in an age of cheap energy. :-)
In the last chapter of the book, there is a section quoted from the inventor's diary on his bitter disappointment about how humankind used his invention. He had hoped cheap fusion power would liberate humanity for a life of contemplation, creativity, or even just loafing around (see also Bob Black's essay "The Abolition of Work"). But instead that fictional world ended up with "a snowmobile in every driveway ... and a dune buggy plowing up every patch of sand".
The inventor said he was shut out by large corporations etc. from advocating positive ideas about the social issues relating to his invention of cheap fusion energy, and his aspirations for humankind's social uplift. While he got a lot of money from the patents, the cheap energy soon made everyone rich in material terms, and so being financially obese did not mean much anymore. Fortunately, even though the inventor was pessimistic, humanity did expand into space habitats eventually in that fictional world (given room in the solar system for quadrillion of people in habitats built from asteroidal ore), and one could hope such a human proliferation (or even better robotics and AI) would bring some wider social diversity along with time for reflection by some individuals on a healthier relationship between consciousness and the universe.
I'd recommend reading that book just for some general insights into the social and economic side of cheap energy (and some laughs for stressful times). As it is a satirical novel, I'm not saying its predictions are going to be 100% true (I sure hope not), but it is a useful cautionary tale to read none-the-less. James P. Hogan's hard sci-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear" is another good book on a similar topic, about the collision of a society rooted in scarcity assumptions with a society built around abundance assumptions and cheap energy.
In reality, there are many non-paying activities most people would like to do more of, things that take a lot of time. These are essentially voluntary things, like to be a good friend, to be a good neighbor, to be a good parent, to be a good caretaker for sick relatives, or to be an informed citizen. I hope material abundance through cheaper energy and other innovations could make it more possible for people to have time to do those essential humane tasks as well as people want to do them; people may otherwise be prevented from doing those things well by the need to work just to get a basic subsistence income (even as meaningful productive work itself can be a very good thi
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Neither does anyone else. Nuclear fusion is not a chemical reaction. It fuses two atoms together to create a different type of atom.
you know it just occurred to me that if mixing nickel, hydrogen and electricity generates fusion then the NIH batteries in the Energizer bunny should go thermonuclear!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The university developed the technology for making sausages. ;)
I ran across one of your posts a few months back. I'd been thinking about the 'abundance problem' for a couple years now, and appreciate your eloquent take on the situation.
If I had a mod point, I'd give a +1. :)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
"metal into gold"
EUREKA! this gold is metal!
yet another way to boil water. You just got to wonder what an outsider would be forced to think, watching us spend billions of dollars, hours, and years, and so much innovation to find new things, only to do the same thing with it -- boil water again.
Although, I must say, I do like asian teas. Maybe that's the only goal -- to steep tea.
Cold Fusion == more tea.
Correct. Cold fusion isn't a theoretical impossibility, like perpetual motion - it can, in princible, be done.
IANAPhysicist, but I'm pretty sure PM can't be done even in principle.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There's tried and true scientific measure for this stuff, Crackpot Index. Count score for yourself:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
Of course, measure is a little outdated, e.g. the founding of a scientific magazine for the publishing of your work is not rated, which is really a shame, hopefully the author will work it into some future version.
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
If you want to proof its nuclear, get out your low-energy radiation detectors.
For Cold Fusion, I'd imagine "that's hot" means it isn't working would it not?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Question marks mark questions.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
In natural language there is not a formal description of "binding". The term "binds more tightly" is something from programming.
I'm as surprised as you were that there is a comma operator in C. Hadn't seen that one before...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Umm.
Quantum physics works, and general relativity works (both are experimentally verifiable to all kinds of accuracy).
The problem is you can't write a theory of one in terms of another.
-Bucky
That was kind of my point. The two theories don't fit, therefore we can't really say we understand either class of phenomena.
I would say we understand something if we can predict the outcome of any experiment, but with gravity, there are experiments where we don't know what will happen.
I think Zen-Mind was talking about the reason why a certain term appears in an equation, rather than a solution for the equation in certain parameter ranges (which we can obtain because some terms are very small and we ignore them). And this probably means a unified theory.
new sig
Now where did I put my Flux Capacitor? I could swear I left it right next to the DeLorean ....
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Actually, to my knowledge, there is no reason to think that cold fusion has or every will work. It's a claim without solid theory behind it, no?
That's still better than having an established and apparently very accurate theory, that says it's impossible. So cold fusion isn't quite like perpetual motion.
YES! After extensive study and plumbing the depths of knowlege I have discovered the arcane secret to transmute gold to lead! ...
Wait... Oh DAMMIT!
proud to be italian, hope they dont keep it under industrial secret - it would be a real shame for the scientific world
You can read it here (ridiculous Google translation) while the original is here.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
How much heat energy, in Joules, was generated during the demo?
How much electrical energy, in Joules, was consumed during the demo?
Why is it those two numbers appear in none of the news reports?
Seastead this.