Cold Fusion Rides Again!

See www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/nuclear

Your second link was more specific than the first, but I still haven't found the article you appear to be citing.

Dick

Very sorry this is what was printed and all I can pass on at this time I will investigate further.

Go to the second link and see the top left pannel click on home this brings up the heading (top story) nuclear fusion. now top centre.

Found it - Thanks!

I'll be watching for more...

Dick

This link leads straight to the story intro:

http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg19426021.000-cold-fusion--hot-news-again.html

The Szpak group has provided the most promising results to date. Let's hope others can reproduce the results and figure out how to scale it up.

Well done and thanks for your effort.

I can get the introduction but they want me to subscribe to read anything more than the first two paragraphs. It's a pain but could anybody that has a subscription give us a quick outline of how he claims to have achieved cold fusion?

As in new scientist, an 8cm by 2cm square container is filled with Palladium chloride and lithium chloride dissolved in heavy water a top plate with a hole in the center a further plate with a wire going to a woven wire (like a toaster element) connects to the Positive and another wire goes to a nickel plate with a gold wire on top. Palladium and deuterium atoms build up in the wire. When a critical mass of palladium atoms has gathered the reaction proper starts up. (CR-39) is used for the detector. approx 1 1/2 cm from the bottom. When an electric current is passed pits are seen in the detector visible when viewed under a microscope. These group closest to the wire.

The unit is run for several days or weeks and seems to produce more heat than the electrical current alone would allow for. CR-39 is a particular plastic that when bombarded with neutrons or protons will show signs of damage due to the impact of the fast moving particles. Try your news stand for the full story.

This is somewhat disturbing in the sense that it overlooks a giant hurdle, in terms of basic, fundamental physics:

To create fusion in the classic sense, you need to collide nucleons over the Coulomb barrier, which gets stronger and stronger the closer the nucleons are.

This proximity problem means that you need incredibly powerful, initial energy boost, just in order to start the chain reaction.

Those somewhat knowledgeable in nuclear weaponry, know how strong the initial push is supposed to be, and how it is obtained.

This being a public domain site, it is not very smart to mention or quote here, but suffice to say, not a lab-scale energy push.

In short: Good enough for PR and budget extraction, not very likely in practical terms. I'd say it's a clever manipulation of scientific terminology, for the long-term purpose of budgeting research labs. A huge, long-term, scamming of research money. Time will tell.

P.S: I think they also hinted this by insinuation, at the foot note of the article mention.

On second thought, there are other giant hurdles: to maintain, confine, and regulate fusion reaction, once we manage (even if only in our dreams) to start the ignition, and this is besides the non-existing technology to extract useful energy from such imaginary reactor.

Cold Fusion Rides Again alright, rides people's pockets and imagination, that is...

What can one do, I seem to be an Opsimist, an doubtful, experienced optimist.

To create fusion in the classic sense, you need to collide nucleons over the Coulomb barrier, which gets stronger and stronger the closer the nucleons are.

From what I understand and I may be wrong, there is a further complication that goes with the fusion process. As the atomic number increases the number of protons in the nucleus increases. More protons means stronger electromagnetic repulsion and as a result an increase in the amount of energy that is needed to overcome it in order for fusion to take place. The upshot of all this is that for nuclei heaver than nickel or iron you expend more energy gating past the electromagnetic repulsion that you get back from the fusion. This is why nuclear fission of ²³⁵U and fusion of hydrogen isotopes even though they are reverse processes both release energy.

The idea of cold fusion comes from the concept that even though the temperature of a given sample may be relatively cool the temperature is really a mean value of the kinetic energy that all the particles that make up the sample posses. If you instead of looking at the sample as a whole look at the KE of the individual particles that make up the sample you will find that there is actually a range of KE that individual particles possess. The idea is, that even though the mean energy is too low, there should be individual particles within the sample that do posses enough energy to overcome the electromagnetic repulsion and sooner or later a collision between two such particles should take place and result in nuclear fusion.

The problem is, according to the current understanding of probability and statistics, at relatively low temperatures and pressures, the probability of two nuclei having enough energy to cause fusion actually colliding is extremely remote and that the mean time between such occurrence is enormous.

If cold fusion is actually taking place at rates greater than predicted by the current mathematics and physics then the only conclusion that can be drawn is the current physics is either wrong or incomplete. The problem is the current physics seems to fit when applied to all other situations, including those where nuclear fusion really dose take place.

This then raises the question, if the physics fits everywhere else why would it not apply here and what is different to cause it to not apply in this situation?

This is a question I can't answer and to date I havn't seen an answer from any of the cold fusion proponents either. Regardless of the observed energy discrepancies before we can accept the notion that cold fusion is occurring this fundamental question must be answered. Until then it must remain an anomaly that is not completely understood or explained.

Well, what you described is an on-going part of accelerator collision beams, directed at minute or faint targets.

- On targets from both ends of the periodical table.

Of our concern, with deuterium and tritium (not daring to mention hydrogen):

Occam, Again: It's been going on for what, thirty years? with bigger and more powerful accelerator, one bigger than CERN now in the Chicago area, I think?

- Any world shaking news?

- A new proof model working?

I'm as hopeful as you are, believe you and me. A blissful promise for the future. Really.

Not with great expectations, I'm afraid.

Yeah, it's the old "details at 11" trick.

For more information on cold fusion research in the U.S. Navy, including the research described in the New Scientist, see:

http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/USNavy.htm

- Jed Rothwell

Librarian, LENR-CANR.org

Just a little bit of background to add here -

Bennett Daviss' article in New Scientist on May 3 is a follow-up piece to the in-depth article on the SPAWAR San Diego research by Steven Krivit and Daviss published in New Energy Times in November.
Apparently, New Scientist chose to neglect the term "low energy nuclear reactions," which those of us observing, and working in the field have now adopted.
The term "cold fusion" was never chosen by Fleischmann and Pons; it was wished on them by the press. It was and is a poor descriptor for the phenomenon. The concept of fusion remains highly speculative, a variety of phenomena are clearly not fusion, and then there is the Widom-Larsen not-fusion theory.
Related New Energy Times stories:
Report on the 2006 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference (Sept. 10, 2006)

Extraordinary Evidence (Nov. 10, 2006)
Extraordinary Courage: Report on Some LENR Presentations at the 2007 American Physical Society Meeting (March 16, 2007)

Charged Particles for Dummies: A Conversation With Lawrence P.G. Forsley (May 10, 2007)
Steven Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times