Fleischmann to Work on Commercial Fusion Heater 245
deeptrace writes "California company D2Fusion has announced they are hiring Dr. Martin Fleischmann (of 'Pons and Fleischmann' fame). The company belives that they can produce a commercial fusion based home heating prototype within a year. They are also looking at other applications, such as using it as a heat source for a commercially available Stirling electrical generator."
...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:5, Funny)
Play it? (Score:2, Funny)
Fusion power in your home (Score:3, Funny)
And if you consider intermediary methods of storing energy, fusion power for home heating goes back much further [vt.edu].
Re:Fusion power in your home (Score:2)
Actually, it turns to antimatter--that's what gives it the extra kick!
BTM
Re:...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:5, Insightful)
What has he got to lose? Work out the possible scenarios
1. Fleischman is a crank and...
1.1 He succeeds by accident.
Success through monumental incompetence is indistinguishable from briliance to the general public.
See Christopher Columbus. Fleischman will spend the rest of his life unjustly rubbing his
detractors' noses in their public humiliation.
1.2 He fails.
Nobody's opinion of him changes. The only people who profess to believe him are credulous people
and those who would exploit them. The people who've been saying he was a crank will be vindicated.
The wait and see people will also feel vindicated, and continue to wait and see, as it's no skin of
their proverbial noses.
2. Fleischman is a misunderstood genius and
2.1 He succeeds by dint of preserverence.
Vindication is sweet. Fleischman will spend the rest of his life justly rubbing his
detractors' noses in their public humiliation.
2.2 He fails through no fault of his own.
Nobody's opinion of him changes. The only people who profess to believe him are credulous people
and those who would exploit them. The people who've been saying he was a crank will be vindicated.
The wait and see people will also feel vindicated, and continue to wait and see, as it's no skin of
their proverbial noses.
The moral of the story will either way: it never pays to give up. The only thing at stake is whether future generations of school children will be forced to produced earnest essays drawing this conclusion from the story.
Re:...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:2)
Fleischmann was a good scientist, who in a moment of over-exuberance over what he thought was a world changing discovery, rushed to publish in the publish or perish world.
He perished when it was discovered his research was not reproducible. Having become the laughinstock of the scientific world, he can no longer get his research published. Making a living is becoming hard, as he can't get research funding.
Rather than give up on science, and take a lower paying more menial job, he fall
A contradiction (Score:2, Insightful)
Science is all about getting reproducible results, and a scientist who fails to do so is, by definition, not a good one.
Re:...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:3, Informative)
The thing is, we're not terminally deluded, as you apparently are. To the extent P&F's results were reproduced, it was because others reproduced the experimental sloppiness that led P&F to delude themselves into thinking they had discovered something interesting.
There was a flood of mutually inconsistent 'results' during the initial flurry of
Re:...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:2)
Re:...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:2)
Pick up that phone! (Score:2)
Re:...Fusion in a ... year? (Score:2)
Uh oh, they're on to us!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I'm part of the Zionist Occupation Government [wikipedia.org]. We're afraid that cheap energy will loosen our stranglehold on power. And discrediting Cold Fusion wasn't easy, let me tell you! We had to bribe, intimidate, or murder every single person who actually figured out how to design a generator using this process. Plus we had to secretly edit every relevent textbook and scientific paper so they'd use a physic
Hmm...come to think about it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm...come to think about it... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm...come to think about it... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm...come to think about it... (Score:2)
It's 1997 all over again!
Will it explode (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Will it explode (Score:2)
What? April 1st already? (Score:5, Funny)
They want you to invest, not pay rent (Score:2)
In me opinion, me conjectures/thinks they announced Fleischmann was hired to encourage people to invest in their company's stock. After all, if Fleischmann is willing to sign on.. they must have something of potential value. They even provided their stock ticker symbol in the article, so if you want to invest
So, to me, this does not mean they have a viable product that is guaranteed to make millions, it just means they want people to invest money in their company.
Fleishman has balls (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Fleishman has balls (Score:2)
Re:Fleishman has balls (Score:2)
You mean D2Fusion delivered the cash to Fleischmann to be a figurehead in the company.
Re:Fleishman has balls (Score:2)
That was their first mistake because in the process, critical details about the procedure for producing cold fusion were left out.
http://www.loe.org/series/fusion.htm [loe.org] whe
Fleishman found something, but what? (Score:5, Informative)
Where Pons and Fleischmann made their mistake was rushing to the press to stick a label "Cold Fusion" to their unexplained phenomena that they even admitted they didn't really understand.
Whatever the phenomenon Pons and Fleischmann discovered is, too many people have repeated similar work and been successful getting similar results.
Mendel did a lot of great work on genetics and heredity without knowing a thing about DNA. I have a feeling the Pons and Fleischmann work will be a similar situation. They found an experiment that proves something in a science we are incapable of analyzing yet.
Re:Fleishman found something, but what? (Score:3, Interesting)
The whole contraption operates at atmospheric pressure, so what you get is at best steam at 100 deg. C or 370K. Converting this to electricity in a perfect (but unobtainable) Carnot machine with a heat sink at 300K gives an efficiency of a measly 20%. So unless this thing puts out at least 5 times the energy being put into it, it won't even be capable of driving itself.
Re:Fleishman found something, but what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, assuming (which I doubt) that all they can do is heat water, there are a whole lot of industrial uses for heated water
they found more ways to screw up (Score:2)
there should have been a patent for something titleable "A New Approach to Stringing Together Balderdash."
they were out of their field, they couldn't figure it out, and now fleischman's large body of published work, much of it rather suspect on examination, has got him another big business sucker with more money than th
Re:Fleishman found something, but what? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the basic principles of science is parsimony: choose the simplest explanation that fits the facts. I don't know what happened in the lab because I wasn't there, but if I'm offered a choice between assuming (A) some previously unknown phenomena, which nobody has been able to reliably reproduce, or (B)malfunctioning equipment or outright fraud,
Re:Fleishman found something, but what? (Score:4, Informative)
NONSENSE!
See my previous posting on the numerous experimental errors in their original experiment and paper. What they demonstrated is that they were very poor at experimental design, and did extremely sloppy calorimetry. I would suggest that anyone who tends to believe this stuff look into both the history of experiments in cold fusion in the late '80s, and then the fascinating story of the very similar polywater [wikipedia.org] controversy of the late '60s.
The cold fusion episode was a classic example of pathological science.
Furthermore, people have been studying the thermodynamics of deuterium adsorption into palladum since the 19th century! Nothing new here.
This is smart. (Score:2, Funny)
Who would you hire, one of the hundred or so people who couldn't do it, even though they followed the protocols to the letter?
Re:This is smart. (Score:2)
Sorry, too tired to look for the actual source of my statement, but I am pretty confident that's what he said...
"Within a year" (Score:5, Insightful)
But never "now", or "in the stores next week", or "come, see this working!"
Re:"Within a year" (Score:2)
Re:"Within a year" (Score:2)
Stupid, Party of Many, Your Table is Ready! (Score:2)
Fusion ? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps it will fuse hydrogen atoms with oxygen atoms - after all, no one said anything about nuclear fusion, now did they ?-)
Another interesting tech used. (Score:2)
Re:Another interesting tech used. (Score:3, Interesting)
A wobble yoke (otherwise called a wobble plate) transfers the up and down motion of the pistons into a rotation ALONG THE SAME AXIS AS THE PISTON MOTION. In a car, the crankshaft rotates perpendicular to the piston motion. Wobble plates are not new (they've been used in torpedoes among other things),
Re:Another interesting tech used. (Score:2)
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/pumpglos/wobble.h
then explain how this linkage works I still cant see how it rotates with two pistons fastened to it
Everything can... (Score:2)
Oh, you must be new to Slashdot....
Recently I was in a restaurant. As I removed the paper ring holding my napkin & utensils together, I noticed a little inscription:
"Patent No. xxxxxx" [with a real number].
WTF!?!?!? Sure enough, someone patented napkin rings. I don't have the patent doc in front of me, but they made the description very general -- it covers much more than just napkins [but I think it mentioned food/uten
Re:Another... Pictures are good (Score:2, Informative)
What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Genius. They can't detect any excess neutrons so obviously there's a new, radiation free, type of D-D fusion going on.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
But it doesn't have to be -fusion-. Palladium is past iron, so -in theory- you can gain energy by transmuting it downward, and some of them are claiming that they're seeing elements after the cell was run that weren't there before.
I'm not saying they're right, of course. It's still physics that would break with standard nuclear physics, but I'm always surprised that they keep pushing it as -fusion-, when they clearly don't understand (and admit that they don't understand!) what (if anything) is going on.
Note, incidentally, that if you read, for instance, the DOE report on anomalous heat from D-Pd cells, that both sides of the discussion are at fault here. A fair number of the criticisms ("your explanation doesn't agree with current theory, so it must be wrong!" even when the explanation is essentially "it must be nuclear, but we have no idea how") and arguments on both sides are pretty crappy.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:3, Insightful)
1) The test tubes containing the D2O were open to the air. Diffusion thus removed very quickly the deuterium. Hence the claim that they had Deuterium in their "fusion" is wrong.
2) The calorimetry was done poorly. Again, the system wasn't closed. The electrical power input was measured as if it was DC, but my measurements of such cells show that the signal has significant frequency components in it - probably due to bubbling.
3) The test t
Re:What a load of crap (Score:2)
If you pull two deuterion nuclei togheter, you should get helium 4, and no neutrons. Or you get helium 3 and a neutron, but this is may be very unlikely (well, I didn't make the calculations, they are hard), so you'd produce almost no neutrons.
Not to say that I belive that he does what he says. But if he did what he says, he could very well get the results he says he get.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:3, Informative)
How much is D2O these days? (Score:2)
Sounds a lot like (Score:2)
That'd be Fusion Waporware (FSWP).
All I can say is ... (Score:2)
Re:All I can say is ... (Score:2)
Baloney (Score:2)
are they getting more out of it? (Score:2)
Re:are they getting more out of it? (Score:2)
Re:are they getting more out of it? (Score:2)
Heh: Probably be available before.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The end result would be very progressive (Score:2)
Personal access to cheap energy for everyone can have a very progressive effect on society. Cheap personal transportation means that a highly mobile work force can supply labor at a wide and changing array of locations near or far from their homes. I like this better than the utopia envisioned by some where we are all compelled by force to live in commune like dense housing with access only to 'public' transit.
Re:The end result would be very progressive (Score:2)
For one thing,it would stop global warming (at least that from greenhouse gases; the heat from fusion itself would eventually be a problem).
neutrons (Score:2)
Re:neutrons (Score:5, Insightful)
By that argument, you could say that Ray Davis's experiment didn't work, because it didn't agree with the Standard Model, so it obviously must have been wrong.
Ray Davis built the first neutrino detection experiment [bnl.gov] and found that there was only about a third of the neutrinos coming from the Sun that you would expect.
We now know that he was right - the Standard Model was (slightly) wrong, although in hindsight it should've been relatively obvious.
Saying "their experiment doesn't work because it doesn't agree with the Standard Model" is horrible science. The Standard Model is a theory. It doesn't describe reality. It's a -guess- for how the world works - a well founded, well supported guess, and the best one we have, but still a guess. If you find that the world works in a different way, that doesn't mean your experiment must be wrong.
There are plenty of other reasons to criticize cold fusion (the lack of repeatability being the main one) but "it doesn't agree with current theory" is about the worst criticism you can give.
Re:neutrons (Score:2)
I highly suggest you take your toys and go home...where intelligence will be appreciated!
Re:neutrons (Score:2)
Excellent point. If there is anything to this--and I'm skeptical--then it's a good indication that the standard models are in serious need of revision.
On another note, I don't really understand all the negativity about this. I see four possibilities here:
extra ordinary clams (Score:2)
As the saying goes extra ordinary clams require extra ordinary proof. I'll have to believe this one when my feet are propped up next to it keeping my feet warm. Maybe it will be small enough that I can toss it under my desk like my old C64 power supply.
Next product (Score:2)
Proposed device name: (Score:2, Funny)
Sans Nuclear And Killing Energy Overly Induced Liquid
power unit.
Back in 1945 someone was saying the same thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
But... the more things change...
In 1945, The World Publishing Company published a nice little volume, The Atomic Age Opens edited by one Gerald Wendt and helping explain to the public what recent events meant. Along with quotations by military people who had witnessed the Trinity test, tutorials on neutrons and protons "doing their stuff" (as George Orwell once phrased it), and so forth, were some predictions for the future:
"Dr. R. M. Langer, physics research associate at the California Institute of Technology, said five years ago in _Collier's_ magazine that U-235 could create a civilization in which man would dwell underground for better living....
[In the future] 'Light is generated by fluorescence which occurs around U-235 and is piped under the house through transparent plastic sheets along the interiors of rooms,' Langer said. 'The household supply of U-235 is stored and used slowly in the chamber where plants are grown. Appropriate portions are automatically delivered through a tube-distribution system to stations where they are needed to provide heat or power for machinery or cooking....'
Families will travel short distances in automobiles powered by small chunks of U-235 in a water tank inside the car, he said....
Admitting that none of the ideas he envisioned have yet been worked out in practice, Langer declared that the difficulties were those of detail...."
Re:Back in 1945 someone was saying the same thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
You could power your house off 235 fission (hey, we do with power plants), possibly even light your house via the glow discharge around a reactor but some people suggest that giving every house a big lump of uranium may not be the most sensible thing to do. So, what prevents us doing this is health, politics and efficiency concerns.
What prevents us using cold fusion is the fact that it doesn't work and has never worked!
Re:Back in 1945 someone was saying the same thing. (Score:2)
Re:Back in 1945 someone was saying the same thing. (Score:2)
Re:Back in 1945 someone was saying the same thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't these cold fusion devices supposedly require electrical input to initiate fusion? If you run current through a resistor, it will generate heat, and how many people hook their space heaters up to calor
Re:Back in 1945 someone was saying the same thing. (Score:2)
Re:Back in 1945 someone was saying the same thing. (Score:2)
The Fuel Comparison Chart (Score:2, Funny)
Check it out. It's suddenly eased my mind. For a minute I thought it was a scam, until I saw the milk float.
Two Possibilities (Score:2)
Seriously, this would be the biggest thing since the invention of the AC dynamo, and as such would have a profound effect on the world's economy and socio-political power structure. And many folks out there hate change.
Home heating by fusion power - here already (Score:5, Funny)
It's a south facing window.
Re:Home heating by fusion power - here already (Score:2)
+5 insightful
If _every_ home had a decently set up south facing solar collector setup
(thermal wall/hot water/photovoltaics pick one or several) it would put at least SOME measurable dent in your energy bills.
Re:Home heating by fusion power - here already (Score:2)
peer review (Score:2, Funny)
I am convinced! (Score:2)
I'm concerned about all this excess helium. (Score:4, Funny)
Do you know what your helium footprint is?
Are you producing excess helium with your basement fusion unit just so you can run your massively overclocked Intel Macintosh on your zero refresh time flat screen monitor at enough frames per second to keep you alive in Duke Nukem Forever?
What about all that helium produced when you're charging up your jet pack or opening the wormhole to your new office in Tokyo?
We're producing so much helium now that that the earth is lighter than its ever been! People are speaking in high pitched voices remote regions of New Jersey, and there are reports of rain falling up! Soon, we could see the earth become light enough that its mass is no longer in balance with its speed and our orbit of the sun increases, causing a new ice age! And its your fault! Stop the madness, burn fossil fuels.
Re:High pitched New Jersey voices? (Score:2)
FTC? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not that I have much faith in the Federal Trade Commission (after all, Sunday morning TV is still peppered with those infomercials for the handy-dandy Quattro (or whatever they're) called 'healing magnetic bracelets'), but someone is going to be mighty pissed when they find out that they've forked out 5 or 10 grand for what is effectively just a bunch of clever heat exchangers (i.e. Stirling engines) that they could have bought for a less than a thousand bucks. Probably pissed enough that they complain to t
Here's their SEC filing (Score:5, Informative)
On August 18, 2005, the Company acquired D2Fusion Inc. ("D2Fusion"), as a wholly owned subsidiary in exchange for a five (5) year convertible debenture in the amount of two million dollars ($2,000,000) and an agreement to advance up to two million two hundred thousand ($2,200,000) in the form of loans over the next twelve (12) months to capitalize D2Fusion' initial business plan. The stock purchase agreement further commits the Company to assist D2Fusion to have direct access to public markets within the next six (6) months for the purpose of raising additional funds in excess of those committed by the Company. D2Fusion is a research and development company staffed by scientists and engineers working toward the delivery of proprietary solid-state fusion aimed at entry level heat and energy applications for homes and industry. Solid-state fusion is a technology more widely recognized under the name "cold-fusion." Unlike the reactions in "cold-fusion," D2Fusion technology uses much simpler and more reliable solid state processes more akin to high temperature super-conductor physics to produce and control radiation-free fusion reactions. In this simplest form of fusion two deterium atoms which are contained and constrained under solid state conditions fuse to form a single helium atom. Each new helium atom created is accompanied by an enormous energy release. Under ideal conditions, one gram of hydrogen fuel is equivalent to billions of watts of energy. Russ George and Dr. Tom Passell, who head the Palo Alto based company, have been involved with solid state fusion research since 1989. Successful experimental prototypes have been tested at Stanford Research Institute. The immediate intention of D2Fusion is to produce kilowatt scale thermal prototypes which will be further tested and refined by collaborating research groups in the Silicon Valley, Los Alamos, the US Navy, and Frascati, Italy. D2Fusion's ultimate goal is to produce heat and electricity at a fraction of today's cost with no emissions. The Company is well aware of the controversy surrounding "cold fusion" technology. However, the Company believes that there is sufficient global evidence that the risk/reward ratio merits investment. Should D2Fusion's prototype technology be scaled to commercial size it will help solve much of the world's energy, water, and pollution problems.
That "successful experimental prototypes have been tested at Stanford Research Institute" line looks very suspicious. For one thing, there is no "Stanford Research Institute" today. It's been "SRI International" since 1970.
Re:Here's their SEC filing (Score:2)
A number of assertions in this press release may be considered to be forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including timely development, and market acceptance of products and technologies, competitive market conditions, and the ability to secure additional sou
Re:Here's their SEC filing (Score:2, Insightful)
> to billions of watts of energy.
If they think that energy is measured in watts, I don't think there's much chance that their other physics will hold up.
disclaimer from TFA (Score:2)
Wrong icon on this post. (Score:2)
Their picture looks more like (Score:2)
It's Not April 1 Yet (Score:2)
This is nothing... (Score:2)
Re:Is that company publicly traded? (Score:2)
Re:Is that company publicly traded? (Score:2)
Re:Is that company publicly traded? (Score:2)
Re:Is that company publicly traded? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:article explaining the Cold fusion process (Score:2, Informative)
Re:article explaining the Cold fusion process (Score:2)
/PI'm on firmer ground with the later bits (I'm a nuke physicist) so I fell more confident saying that the section explaing why no gamma radiation is observed is just plain wrong. Of course, it could be correct and it's just our understanding of physics that's flawed- make your own decision!
Re:Mayonnaise? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why the negativity. (Score:2)