U.S. Dept. of Energy Takes A New Look At Cold Fusion 554
lhouk281 writes "Technology Review is reporting that the U.S. Department of Energy has decided that recent results justify a fresh look at cold fusion. According to Peter Hagelstein, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, experiments performed under properly controlled conditions reliably produce more heat than standard theory predicts, and nuclear products show up in about the right amounts to account for this excess heat. Maybe we'll get those atomic-powered automobiles after all ..."
Where are the neutrons? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I guess that is still my question. It always seemed to me that there was some sort of poorly understood reaction going on, but it was more likely a physical chemistry issue than a nuclear issue.
sPh
Forget fusion, just give me turbine! (Score:1, Interesting)
Poly water (Score:5, Interesting)
Although it was considered unexplainable, repeated tests showed that the one and only thing inside the glass beaker was infact water. So it had to be a new form of water. A kind of ice-9 but for real.
It was eventually found to be accumulated soluble silica products from the glassware. Which of course was the one chemical that could not be tested for inside a glass beaker. Got people exited like cold fusion for a while, since like cold fusion is was not utterly implausible.
war will result if true (Score:3, Interesting)
Just my first thought
USDOE Likes It? (Score:5, Interesting)
A colleague of mine walked into our DOE monitor's office one day to deliver a milestone report. That report was hand delivered to the DOE employee. The DOE employee sets the report down, engages my colleague in a bit of small talk, and then asks if he has the report ready for delivery.
DOE is a bureaucracy. It has some very bright and engaging people working in it's ranks. On the other hand, it has some "lifers" who haven't a clue. These poor souls are in a position to not only accidentily make policy decisions (see: a million monkeys), but they are also in a position to ignore good advice and strong scientific evidence.
I would put DOE's support for Cold Fusion down as one of those brain farts that they occasionally pull (much like the CIA's $200M experiment in remote viewing).
Is there a physicist in the house? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll believe it when I see it running my car. Actually, I probably won't believe it even then.
Bob Park Said it Best (Score:3, Interesting)
... in his What's New [aps.org] column on April 2:
Re:Where are the neutrons? (Score:4, Interesting)
The way I see it, cold fusion is such a tremendously holy grail, and the Pons-Fleischman experiment was simple enough to replicate, it would've made more sense to throw some more experimental funding at it years ago. A handful of failed attempts to replicate the results are discouraging, yes, but the potential benefits should've justified a bit more tinkering back when it was announced.
Maybe I'm missing it, maybe the threshhold of debunking was passed and everyone gave up on it as a fluke. Maybe it still is a fluke, albeit a somewhat more convincing one.
Obviously not the whole scientific community gave up on the idea, or today's announcement never would've happened. What did these folks know that kept them working on it?
On par with Bush administration science (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess that's what would make it attractive to the Bush administration, whose science policy has been called into question. [cnn.com] Backing bogus research allows them to point at support of alternative energy sources without taking a risk of actually finding something that might threaten their oil company bedmates.
Re:Where are the neutrons? (Score:5, Interesting)
Believe me, whatever the mythical secret-suppressing automobile manufacturers/oil drillers don't want revealed, the the electic industry very much does want a new energy source. However, nothing was ever found and the work was de-funded after about 8 years.
sPh
Re:Solve the world's problems (Score:2, Interesting)
Then we could just ignore them. Like Africa.
Global Warming would get worse... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the paths that Arthur C. Clarke went down exposed this issue with cheap and nearly unlimited energy.
CO2 would go down, but do we really know enough about how the enviroment works to say that that is the only cause or the biggest?
Re:Solve the world's problems (Score:3, Interesting)
a palladium cell at quite a high efficiency for quite a long time in order to pay for the mass of palladium. While it has been obvious to me that cold fusion was real, on the basis of the published papers, since 1990, it seems equally obvious that it is not a sufficient basis for a commercially viable power technology, without substantial further innovation.
Leave alone the cost of palladium, which is probably going to exceed that of gold in the near future, any effect that is so sensitive to uncontrolled conditions as to allow the James Randis of the world this much freedom to make fools of themselves is not likely to be commercially useful except in the construction of magic eightball devices.
Conspiracy Theory! (Score:1, Interesting)
The Farnsworth fusion process got the same treatment (with some help from industry and the Patent Office) and it looked very possible given some research.
The government is bankrolling multibillion dollar fusion plants (that may never work and can't even in theory compete economically) while any suggestion of other methods is quickly denounced and buried.
Could it be they don't want small-scale power generation to work? If we were less dependent on the public utilities, might we be too hard to keep in line?
Only 1 helium 4 atom found. (Score:1, Interesting)
"Theory predicts that the fusion reaction should generate 24 million electron volts (MeV) of energy per helium-4 nucleus. An analysis by Michael McKubre of SRI International detected energy of 31 MeV- a match within the experimental uncertainty of plus or minus 13 MeV. Skeptics had doubted the reaction was possible, but Hagelstein says McKubre's analysis of the experiments, reported at last year's cold fusion meeting, shows that fusion of two deuterium to yield helium-4 "is not as nutty as it initially seemed."
They found 1 helium-4 atom?!? For some reason, wouldn't feel confident betting my career on ONE ATOM! And thats there best candidate out of 3000 papers?
Re:Where did I put that thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
While academics at the event lambasted his unprofessional conduct - all I could say is that whatever Dr. Fleischman had been working on, it had no hope of supporting his highly unusual theories.
Re:Where did I put that thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
It was as crass as the infomercial's that tell you to "order now! time is limited! only ten minutes left!"
Even if they had a good idea, they established all the credibility of the hawkers of weight-loss formulas.
Ain't no gettin yer dignity back from that....
Re:Where are the neutrons? (Score:1, Interesting)
There are 3 known deuterium-deuterium fusion reactions.
In high-temperature fusion, about 50% of the reactions are
H2 + H2 -> H3 + p
where tritium and a free proton (with energy) are produced. The other 50% of reactions are
H2 + H2 -> He3 + n
where helium-3 and a free neutron (with energy) are produced. These neutrons are fairly high in energy (a few MeV, if memory serves) and no healthy for humans. I assume these are the neutrons that scientists expected would irradiate and kill the researchers.
However, there is evidence that about 0.0001% of deuterium-deuterium reactions are
H2 + H2 -> He4
where helium-4 is produces and the resultant energy gain is released, probably through electromagnetic radiation.
The question is, does that "cold fusion" setup catalize the rare reaction to become vastly more likely than the other reactions. Currently, there is no established theory as to how this could even be possible to do, no less by palladium atoms.
-a
Believe it when it's peer-reviewed (Score:2, Interesting)
My weak little mind is still smarting from the Over-Unity engine story a couple weeks back. I was suckered.
But in a world with uranium-eating bacteria, [exn.ca] I suspect there are a few surprises left for scientists and the rest of us. I for one will be happy if these experiments pan out and I can read about it in Science.
Don't need neutrons if you have a third object. (Score:5, Interesting)
As I understand it, the reason plasma-based fusion reactions tend to produce neutrons is that you need to dump the excess energy from the reaction product for the fused neucleus to "settle down" in the lower-energy bound state, and that means you need to spit out an additionl particle to dump the energy as momentum. Thus D+D -> T+n, or D+T -> He+n.
In "cold fusion" the reaction is taking place in a dense metal matrix - at a deuterium density far too low for the "normal" two-particle fusion rate to be significant. This implies that, if there is significant fusion going on, it's because of some interaction with the surrounding metal, or with other hydrogen neuclei. This implies that some of the normal D+D->He->D+D might stop at He by dumping the excess energy as a recoil off another D or the surrounding matrix of electrons and metal neuclei.
I want to see this experiment retried:
- In a large single-crystal.
- In a large single-crystal with a tiny trace of impurities.
- In a polycrystal of a very few, very large crystals (in case the reaction occurs at crystal boundaries and is enhanced by the size of the crystal).
- With the magnetic field tightly controlled - and varied in both strengh and directon with respect to the crystal lattice.
- With the electric field similarly controlled.
- With controlled electric currents through the metal in various directions.
- With sudden strong pulses of electric and/or magnetic fields once the metal has been "loaded" with deuterium.
- With small bombardments of various charged particles at assorted energies (in case some component of bacground or cosmic radiation is a trigger of a short chain-reaction).
When thinking about hypothetical cold-fusion mechanisms I'm constantly bothered by the similarity of the system to early point-contact diodes, and how quickly the junction transistor, and then the rest of semiconductor technology, fell out of the development of a physical model for the long-range, room-temperature, quanum-mechanical phenomena underlying electrical conduction within a highly-ordered, slightly impure crystal.
Pumping deuterons into a dense and potentially crystaline metal by electrical pressure seems to me to be just begging for the deuterons' wave functions to be stretched out and overlapped in a similar way to those of the electrons, resulting in lots of potential for interactions that would not be observed in the disordered environment of a plasma or liquid.
Re:Where are the neutrons? (Score:5, Interesting)
The possible reactions are listed below:
Note that there is no way to control which of these reactions occurs, so half the fusions should produce neutrons. The other half produce protons which are also relatively easily detected, usually with a kind of silicon diode.
Furthermore if enough fusion is occuring to give a measureable temperature increase then the thing will be really roasting with neutrons and protons. It should make a geiger counter go nuts from activation products alone.
As nice as cold fusion would be, it doesn't work. And wishing it did won't help any.
N.B. I am omitting hydrogen-hydrogen reactions as those take place so slowly that it's not feasible. Also they'd be easy to check for simply by using non-deuterated water or acetone.
Re:Where are the neutrons? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:ARE YOU MAD?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Thoughts from a physicist (Score:5, Interesting)
Standard physics says cold fusion shouldn't work because photon exchanges result in nuclei repelling each other.
However, they think it works here because they think that the palladium atoms are aborbing all the photons which would normally result in the nuclei repelling each other. As a result the nuclei don't exchange photons, so arn't repelled by each other, so they can collide and combine into He.
So, they've somehow developed a lattice who's quantum structure results in creating a barrier between the two nuclei which repels photons, but allows the nuclei to pass through. The nuclei effectivly can't "see" each other until they've already collided.
I found it really interesting that they said they got better results with the impure samples. I did a quick search and discovered that Palladium Ore [webmineral.com] contains Platinum [webmineral.com] Certain isotopes of which are radioactive and produce alpha particles (alpha particles = helium).
So, if their impure samples are the ones that are producing the most helium and heat, its possible that it is simply the platinum in the palladium ore which is providing alpha decays, and that is skewing their results.
Its hard to guess if this is really the case though without knowing what kinds of numbers they are getting. How many helium atoms from how much palladium and how much deuterium.
Re:Where did I put that thing? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Where are the neutrons? (Score:4, Interesting)
Along with this, measurements of reaction products like alphas, neutrons, and tritium can be very difficult to perform reliably at low levels.
I heard a talk by someone who did some recent work, and he talked about one gap in how physicists see the problem. He said that a lot of what is done to prepare containers and catalysts for some reactions in normal chemistry is practically voodoo. Some samples just do not work, for no known reason. Things have to be baked under vacuum ten times longer than what should be required to clean them. The truth is that some things are not as reproducible as they are expected to be, and the absence of easy reproducibility does not mean the original results were erroneous. Chemists understand this, but most physicists do not. If this applies to normal chemistry, it may apply equally to cold fusion experiments.
"There have been a lot of interesting results with various setups reported over the years"
Unfortunately, there has also been a lot of garbage touted as interesting results. I once read through a few reports suggested by CF advocates as some of the best evidence, and they did not meet the standards of a high school science project. Most scientists will not take CF seriously until the CF community polices itself. When lousy scientific work recieves acclaim because it shows the desired result, credibility is demolished. (I would never claim the CF is the only place this happens, but that is not an excuse.) When the CF community separates the serious work from the chaff itself, offering only solid experimental results to the world, then other scientists can start to pay attention.
Re:Is there a physicist in the house? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pray tell how much heat is "unexplained excess heat" when the experimenter cannot tell how much energy went into binding the deuterium into the palladium matrix in the first place? You do realize that usually the deuterium is put into the palladium matrix under rather high pressure. Like, high enough pressure to rupture metal. When you have a gas being pressurized, and then later, excess energy appears, don't you think it's appropriate to wonder how much energy was used pressurizing the gas? If you'll note from the above referenced article:
"McKubre has also found that the seeming inconsistency in experimental heat production arose from differences in the amount of deuterium packed into the palladium electrode. Whenever the number of deuterium atoms loaded into the metal matched or exceeded the number of palladium atoms, excess heat was generated. Palladium loaded with slightly less deuterium produced inconsistent results, and if the deuterium level was reduced by a great amount, then no excess heat at all was produced. Deuterium loading was hard to control and limited by the strength of the metal. Unfortunately, palladium strength is difficult to predict or control, and is not improved by purification; indeed, the purest palladium ruptured at lower loadings, and the highest strength was seen only in one impure batch."
I used to lurk on sci.physics.fusion, back in the day when Dick Blue, Deiter Britz and Stephen Jones used to wrangle it out (names are from 12 years old memory, could be incorrect). The real issue is not that the scientific community refuses to look at the cold fusion community's data (they do refuse, and I'm not defending them) but rather that the cold fusion community refuses to meaningfully communicate with themselves. It's been understood for a while that deuterium binding theory is not well understood. This is a huge missing variable in the "excess energy" they are always talking about. They are exploring the amount of energy involved in deuterium binding, but at the same time they are ignoring it! The cold fusion community puts tremendous effort into proving that cold fusion is a nuclear effect, but cannot answer the simple question - how much energy did you store in your deuterium?
Re:Don't need neutrons if you have a third object. (Score:2, Interesting)
If proven... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me, the more viable and truly scientific work is going on with cold-fusion.
On one camp, we have tons and tons of money and theory and no experiment shown to support that theory (AFAIK; correct me as needed). On spite of this, hot-fusion is thought of as accepted and proven science.
In the other camp, we can scientists performing experiments which are roughly meeting or exceeding expectations and simply lacking in some portions of theory which might explain everything that is going on. In spite of this, cold-fusion is ignored and rejected.
Which is real science? Science finding new things it doesn't understand and attempts to explain or science failing to prove which it hopes might work, one day, given enough funding. Seems to me, hot-fusion is looking more like snake-oil than cold-fusion ever did. Cold-fusion, during the early days of just plain fraud, was quickly shown for what it is. The fact that two guys were invalidated hardly invalidates a whole field of study. My point? Would seem that many "scientists" and failing to look beyond their ego to do real science. If it's being peer reviewed and being replicated, that's science.
Re:Didn't you read the article? (Score:3, Interesting)
It goes like this: if I give any light nucleus more than a few MeV in a metal lattice, it's going to knock neutrons loose left and right. It doesn't matter if it's a proton, a deuteron, tritium, 4He, whatever. And it doesn't matter if I give it that energy via fission or fusion or waving a magic wand. No matter what I do, such a particle will produce neutrons. This is as close to a certainy as anything in this life can be.
Hand-waving plausibility arguments regarding lattice recoil won't do. Either show me the neutrons, or show me a way of dumping 20-odd MeV into a light nucleus in a metal lattice and NOT producing neutrons. Cold fusion advocates have done neither.
--Tom