Cold Fusion Gets a Boost From the US Navy

Tjeerd writes in to alert us to the publication in a highly respected, peer-reviewed journal of results indicative of table-top fusion. The US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, CA (called Spawar) has apparently been conducting research on "cold fusion" since the days of the discredited report of Pons and Fleischmann. They are reporting on the reproducible detection of highly energetic charged particles from a wire coated in palladium-deuterium and subjected to either an electric or a magnetic field. Their paper was published in February in the journal Naturwissenschaften (which has published work by Einstein, Heisenberg, and Lorenz). New Scientist also has a note about the fusion work but it is available only to subscribers.

Figures

[DrMrLordX]

You can bet the Navy is interested in any portable, high-power energy source that could exceed the efficiency of fission reactors. Those rail guns they're pimping probably take a lot of power to operate.

More power to em (literally and figuratively).

Re:Figures

[Da Fokka]

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

Cold fusion

[Oshkoshjohn]

The experiment would probably work better if they built the prototype in a cup of tea!

Re:

[kilodelta]

Add a rubber band and a little improbability and well, you know the rest.

Key: Output Energy Exceeds Input Energy

[reporter]

The key for this experiment is whether the output energy is greater than the input energy. If the former exceeds the latter, then some experimentation may harness the excess energy.

Does anyone know how the output energy compares to the input energy for this military experiment?

Re:Key: Output Energy Exceeds Input Energy

[mdsolar]

At this point, they are not aiming for net energy production. Their two main advances are to 1) use codeposition to get deutrium loading from the beginning and 2) using a detector that can fit within the experiment. The first advance means that the effects are seen just about every time, and the second means that the background has less of an effect on detection, particularly if charged particles are involved since these have trouble escaping the experimental setup owing to Compton losses. Getting more power out than in is not really the basic measure though. The power out so far is heat, so you want quite an excess before you can turn that back into something usable.
--
Energy out from the Sun: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Re:

[h2g2bob]

The key for this experiment is whether the output energy is greater than the input energy.

No it's not. This is an unexpected result, according to the standard models. The key to the experiment is improving those models, and hence our understanding of the world.

Re:Figures

[ShooterNeo]

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

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

Yes, but how often can you fire your guns with that kind of generating capacity, and how many can you fire? Plus, I'm sure the Navy will eventually be interested in firing rail guns that can achieve a higher velocity projectile and/or higher-mass projectiles.

Considering the fact that traditional naval guns have relied on chemical energy to propel projectiles, the amount of power generation capacity needed on a warship to fire old-school guns is/was likely much lower than that required to fire rail guns.

Re:

[ShooterNeo]

You would think that. But it actually isn't the issue. And, in any case, if power generation were the main limit, the navy could always install a fission reactor in a rail-gun packing destroyer.

Re:

[mvdwege]

Incidentally, guns on ships as an offensive weapon have been pretty much obsolete since Pearl Harbour, the occasional shore bombardment mission notwithstanding. The primary naval offensive platform is the aircraft carrier, seconded by the ballistic missile carrying submarine and the guided missile armed cruiser. The old battleship is a distant fourth, if in service at all, and even the use of guns as fleet defense is being phased out in favour of destroyers and frigates armed with guided missiles.

Mart

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you read the crazy performance numbers they are projecting for a big railgun? They are talking about hundreds of miles of range, with projectiles that have active guidance (with movable fins).

Thus, a new weapons platform that can do many jobs that would currently require a missile, but the cost would be much less. And you can have a whole cargo hold full of warheads; missiles take up more room. And the kinetic punch of the warhead does the damage, so there isn't any explosive payload on the warhead;

Re:

[shaitand]

except that you don't have the stored chemical energy, you have to get the power for each shot from the ship generators.

Re:

[Kadin2048]

except that you don't have the stored chemical energy, you have to get the power for each shot from the ship generators.

Which they already have. Really, really big ones; it takes a crapload of energy to push a ship through the water quickly, too, and in order to do it, the Navy (and its contractors) have gotten good at extracting a lot of energy from either nuclear reactions or petrochemicals in short order.

A current-generation Aegis frigate has two GE LM2500 gas turbines, each producing 33,600 shaft HP, wh

Re:

[evanbd]

The energy content of 2 tons of TNT is about 8 gigajoules. That's rather a lot of energy. A kinetic projectile at 10,000 m/s -- mach 30 -- has 50 megajoules per kilogram. You'd need a 160 kg of projectile to reach 8 GJ. Seems possible for a shipboard system, but I bet the first applications are much smaller. Anyway, for something that size you'd want much more than a few hundred kw of generator -- even at 1MW, that's over 2 hours between shots with no inefficiencies anywhere. My personal guess is that

Re:

[Yvanhoe]

Please note that if cold fusion really exists, it will probably not bear the same amount of energy. After all, the first occurrence of hot fusion was in the Hydrogen Bomb and the first occurrence of cold fusion was a bottle making bubbles.
Still interesting to power my laptop battery but maybe not enough for my jetpack.

That Depends

[mdsolar]

The energy produced per fusion event pretty much has to be the same, but the rate at which the fusion occurs is controled differently. If this can be harnessed for energy production, it may end up as distributed power generation rather than centralized power generation envisioned for hot fusion. There does seem to be sufficient palladium available to make significant levels of power.
--
Hot fusion now with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Re:

[Anna Merikin]

the first occurrence of cold fusion was a bottle making bubbles.

Not so. The first occurence (the discovery itself) was caused by a fire in the lab where the experiment was housed; the starting point of the fire was the closet that contained the cooler with the heavy water.

Several years later, probably the first replication of the effect was marked by a fire in the Palo Alto Lab containing the experiment. (To this day, both Stanford and the City of Palo Alto deny there was such a fire, but the local ne

Re:Figures

[MancDiceman]

Talk about xenophobic racism.

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

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

Well done to this journal for actually taking it on.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

Re:Figures

[qrad]

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

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

Re:Figures

[smittyoneeach]

xenophobic racism

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

You might also consider
hyperbole [reference.com]: obvious and intentional exaggeration.

Re:Figures

[fritsd]

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

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

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

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

Re:

[maxwell demon]

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

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

Re:

[The_Wilschon]

Well, presumably the US Navy consists primarily of English speakers. Also, the bulk of the people who ought to be interested in work by the US Navy, an arm of the US government, are English speakers. So, it would seem that the US Navy should publish their work (at least, that which is publishable) in a English-language journal. The fact that this was not done might suggest that it was not possible; no English language journal would accept their work. There might be other explanations, but this is the mo

Re:Figures

[shaitand]

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

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

the first place you'd submit it to would normally be Physical Review Letters

This might be true under normal circumstances, but the way cold fusion was introduced to the world created an exceptional condition. It could be that the submitters of this paper feel that the world is still in the 'catch' pathway of the exception that P&F had 'thrown'. It seems pretty obvious that Naturwissenschaften was chosen partly because it creates an association between cold fusion and proven theories that have rocked the foundations of scientific communities.

We've seen a little bit published

Re:

[SnowZero]

Basically, demonstrating CF would have a much bigger impact on our culture than the rail guns, decentralized non-polluting power grids, or affordable flying cars that practical CF promises.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. If I've learned anything from playing FPS games, it's that you can't underestimate the effect of rail guns.

Re:

[salec]

If cold fusion is demonstrated, then

* supernovae might not be the only natural mechanism for producing heavy elements, which would introduce major doubt about some basic theories of cosmology
* there might be an explanation for galactic organization, etc, does not require esoteric dark energy or dark matter
* currently there are only 4 recognized sources of natural energy in the global ecosystem:

Re:

[shaitand]

'Why was this article not published in "US military journal of applied physics" (surely there must be something like this)?'

That seems pretty obvious. Cold Fusion is considered junk science in the US and even credible labs releasing credible and reproducible results can't get anything related to Cold Fusion published in a US journal.

Just look at this thread, this is obviously a credible scientific journal and people are already looking for excuses to disregard it.

Re:

[drgonzo59]

Talk about idiotic exageration.

I corrected you post the way you should have written it.

Read the post. That journal MIGHT HAVE BEEN one of the best journals in the World - looking at the previous contributors mentioned in the post I CAN tell you that it MIGHT HAVE BEEN one of the best journals. Just because it's German and the ONLY THING IT HAS TO SHOW IS THAT EINSTEIN published in it 80 years ago, it DOES mean it is "sub-par". Your post should be modded down for trolling, but unfortunately I expect it'

Re:Figures

[smilindog2000]

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

Boiling water

[mdsolar]

I think I remeber that some of the references in this review http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinnewphy s ica.pdf [lenr-canr.org] to the "heat after death" effect described buckets of water evaporating. For most experiments they try to keep delta T low because they are trying to get an accurate energy measurement using flow calorimeters.
--
Mr. Fusion on your roof: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Re:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

No, it's not.

Polywell operates by creating a converging potential well of tens of thousands of volts and dropping ions into it. At roughly 11,000 degrees kelvin per electron volt that's one HELL of a hot spot.

Tens of kilovolts, on the other hand, are easy to handle - in a near vacuum. The trick is to achieve sufficient DENSITY in that near vacuum and keep the particles at that temperature and pressure for enough TIME to end up with more fusion energy harvested than you put in to set uop the system.

Re:

[smilindog2000]

Sorry, I stand corrected. Muon-catalyzed fusion has been feasible for a long time. To bad I don't own a good mine for digging up muons :-) I assume the Navy research is talking about cold fusion between regular deuterium atoms, which if I understand correctly, is mathematically very unlikely assuming normal states of matter, due to the heavy electric repulsion between the nuclei, which muons get around by reducing the size of a neutrally charged atom to small enough to allow strong forces to kick in. If

Re:

[smilindog2000]

Hey, it's really nice to find someone knowledgeable about fusion. I agree that the engineering challenges are likely very difficult or impossible to overcome, far from what Bussard is saying. For example, I have no idea how the magnets are suppose to survive for any reasonable length of time when only 1.5m away from a 100 megawatt fusion source, with nothing but empty space in between. I would want to hear about potential solutions to those kinds of engineering problems before putting up $200M, even thou

Re:Figures

[pallmall1]

Why choose this Journal?

From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

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

--bold added

Re:Figures

[gvc]

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

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

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

Re:

[Martin Blank]

Perhaps it's published as a means of trying to get an explanation for the mechanism. Sort of like saying, "OK, we see this, and we can't think of any other reason why this might be happening, but we're scratching our heads bald, so anyone with an idea, please speak up."

Science Journalism

[Mark_MF-WN]

Science journalism has some... problems. It's unfortunate really, because their often ludicrous claims, contrasted with the steady, gradual, cumulative nature of real research, creates an impression in the public mind that scientists have no goddam idea what they're doing.

Re:

[radtea]

It does not purport to be a breakthrough, although it does claim that the observations must be due to a nuclear reaction.

As I have no access to the paper it is hard to judge the results, but from this and other comments it appears that their work substantially contradicts P&F's observations, which could not possibly have been due to any fusion reaction that produced energetic charged particles, because there is no way at all for a sufficiently high-energy charged particle to move through a palladium la

Re:

[DrVomact]

You paid $35 for the paper? You're more dedicated than I...or is there some legal way to get the article for free?

Not wanting to spend the money, I have to content myself with the (presumably non-restricted) abstract:

Almost two decades ago, Fleischmann and Pons reported excess enthalpy generation in the negatively polarized Pd/D-D2O system, which they attributed to nuclear reactions. In the months and years that followed, other manifestations of nuclear activities in this system were observed, viz. tri

Re:

[gvc]

My library has a subscription.

Here's a freely available article [newenergytimes.com] that apparently explains the theory. It is cited in an erratum to the original paper. [doi.org]

curious

[User 956]

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

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

Re:

[Bender_]

Computer geek vs. science geek battle alert!

I will take the science side any time! Web technology fads come and go, science will stay.

Re:

[foniksonik]

Like how quantum theory is so very stable? or how the Earth is the center of the universe and also flat? Science fads seem to last longer but is that really better? I'd rather that science advanced as quickly as web technology.... would be nice to see this new science Cold Fusion come out of Alpha by next year so I could deploy my beta home CF Reactor and get off the grid.... like how I can now use an off the shelf OS CMS to run my own website without paying a million bucks for a dev company to build one fr

Re:

[f1055man]

cartman: social cripple fight!!!

Re:curious

[Jessta]

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

Re:

[XMyth]

Myspace is transitioning to ASP.NET though ... :)

Far more exciting

[ab8ten]

is the work (also funded by the navy) undertaken by Dr. Bussard (of interstellar spaceship fame). His design for an electrostatic inertial confinement machine shows more promise than the heavy, expensive tokamak prefered by the internatinal ITER project, and has been built and tested in the lab, but not yet to an energy-return scale. The work was kept secret due to the source of funding, for the last 12 years, so it is only now that we're hearing aboutu it. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846 673788606 [google.com] - Lecture given by Bussard at google, giving an overview of the project. 1:30 long, so if you don't have time, read: http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC %20Paper.pdf [askmar.com] - Summary paper, outlining the research and results so far. The real research paper is yet to be published, but that's what he's working on now.

Re:Far more exciting

[VoidCrow]

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

Theory exists

[mdsolar]

Correction: We don't have an accepted theoretical framework. I've certainly heard talks where such a framework is proposed, and the codeposition particle sizes in the present experiment are anticipated by theory, but it is still much too soon to say if one theory or another is correct, or if any existing theories are adequate. But, I think you are right that this is a more exciting area to dig in.
--
Hot fusion now! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user s -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Re:

[mdsolar]

Sure: http://www.lenr-canr.org/LibFrame1.html [lenr-canr.org] has mostly experimental links but you might look at things by S. Chubb (NRL) or P.L. Hagelstein (MIT) who are kind of rivals. Chubb's work tends to be towards coherence in the presence of boundy conditions looking especially at a low branching ratio D+D->He4 symetric reation while Hagelstein tends to take a quantum tunneling approach.

Re:

[shaitand]

Who has $200 million AND actually wants to reduce the need for oil? Are you one of those who actually believes our dependence upon oil has something to do with a lack of other technology?

Re:

[Dr_Barnowl]

You could express the opinion that since tokamak fusion requires huge amounts of engineering and is a multi-billion dollar industry in itself that the military industrial complex (emphasis on the industrial) has discouraged spending on alternatives that may produce a demonstrable over-unity reactor at a fraction of the $4.8 billion dollars (2002 dollars at that) that the DoE estimates ITER will cost.

Bussard estimates that he could complete one by 2011, ITER is slated to finish in 2013. I'd imagine that a lo

Re:

[b00tang]

There have been a couple posts like this already so I'll take the bait and ask:
where has the polywell fusor been "universally deemed to be the proven method of fusion". If you want to learn more about people who currently are doing IEC research and are in fact funded by the DOE to do so (the Navy doesn't fund ITER to my knowledge things like that go through the DOE), then check out the website from at University of Madison:
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/ftisite1.htm [wisc.edu]

It should give at least a brief introductio

Per Bussard's video given at google campus...

[Ex-MislTech]

His test rigs were 1/8th scale, and he did not have enough power and or other elements
for 'steady state' operation. Doing the work without steady operation is tedious and
possibly missing some key elements of the process.

The Hirsch-Farnsworth device held the record for its energy levels for a long while,
Bussard's exceeded this by quite a bit and shows great promise.

The video is long, and he can be a bit monotone at times, but his brilliance
is undeniable and verifiable thru the video and elsewhere.

DARPA fund

LERN

[Skrynkelberg]

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

LENR-CANR

[mdsolar]

Yup, Low Energy Nuclear Reactions or Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reaction. There is quite a lot that is published here: http://www.lenr-canr.org/ [lenr-canr.org]. The SPAWARS work is quite impressive, with more links to it at http://www.lenr-canr.org/News.htm [lenr-canr.org].
--
Get fusion now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Re:

[flyingfsck]

Don't poke fun at the members of the ASD (American Dyslexic Society).

I hope this means ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... that one day I'll be able to use the melted ice in my 'Cold Fusion' brand beer cooler to recharge my laptop and my iPod ... or even my TV remote.

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[Eukariote]

The "Cold Fusion" field has seen many more experimental successes: detection of neutrons, tritium, helium, transmutations of heavier elements, non-natural-abundance isotope ratios, detection of ionizing radiation. The best place to visit for an overview of the field is http://www.lenr-canr.org/ [lenr-canr.org].

Though the experiments are remarkable, no concensus on the theory has emerged yet. Nuclear reactions are clearly happening, but it is doubtful that it is conventional fusion, that is, nuclei moving fast enough to surmount their mutual Coulombic repulsion. Something seems to be screening or catalysing the reactions.

Re:Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

[ResidntGeek]

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

Re:

[KitsuneSoftware]

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

Re:

[evilviper]

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

...but doesn't know what "nuclear" actually means.

Re:

[zippthorne]

No, it's still quite scary. though probably not for the reason the gp intended..

For instance, in addition to the sub-critical nuclear terrorism angle, nuclear catalysts could cause a bit of a stir in isotopic dating.

If such a catalyst exists, geology should give us some clues: We should look for minerals composed of reaction products, but in concentrations that shouldn't exist.

Re:

[evilviper]

nuclear catalysts could cause a bit of a stir in isotopic dating.

Yes, that could be an issue... But that's absolutely, positively, NOT SCARY, in any way, shape, or form.

Re:

[DeadChobi]

Yes, the catalyst exists. We are all made in His image. You might also be interested to know that He is invisible, and passes through normal matter with ease. Clearly you cannot see past the marinara to the noodles below and understand that this is proof of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's existence.

Re:

[mdsolar]

To get this to go takes quite a lot of preparation, not least getting deuterium concentrated. The effect is not seen with plain hydrogen, so while interesting transmutation have been measured, it is hard to see how this could happen in nature and affect isotopic dating.

Heck, it is hard to see how this could happen at all. The deuteron having integer spin seems like the only thread to pull on....

Video

[Eukariote]

For an video/documentary outlining the status of the "Cold Fusion" field, see the following over on Google video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6426393169 641611451&q=COLD+FUSION&hl=en [google.com]

I won't believe it for real until...

[Glowing Fish]

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

Re:

[lawpoop]

...L - E - N - R! It's fun to play with some L - E - N - R...

The sailor died

[flyingfsck]

so they can't, sorry. BTW, the sailor was also the policeman.

Re:

[StikyPad]

The Navy didn't commission The Village People, they just tried to get the rights to use their song after it became popular. As payment, they provided the use of a ship and some sailors for filming the video, which caused a PR backlash.

Also, to address the sibling poster, this guy [wikipedia.org] played the sailor, this guy [wikipedia.org] played the construction worker, and neither of them appear to be dead.

Sorry for letting facts get in the way of an otherwise good joke though.

Re:

[StikyPad]

Oops, he said the Policeman [wikipedia.org]. Still, he wasn't the sailor, and he's not dead.

Call me ignorant (but considerate)

[xerxesVII]

So maybe I've had a few tonight, but I'm thoughtful enough to not go texting people at this hour. I'll just bug all of you instead.

I feel like I've been reading about cold fusion for as long as I've been old enough to read about science. I can't shake the feeling that cold fusion research is the modern equivalent of alchemy. That is to say that it's kind of a dead end in itself, but the amount of work being done to that end is yielding all kinds of results that will be beneficial to other scientists at some

Cold Fusion

[NotFamousYet]

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

Method

[mdsolar]

The method of recording nuclear tracks is a solid is an old one but it has the advantage that the recording material can be placed very close to the reaction. This has lead to the discovery of very short lived particles that might be long sought axions in a recent accelerator experiment: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0954-3899/34/1/009 [iop.org]. The plastic detectors used in the SPAWARS experiment can be placed close to the electrode so that background is a smaller part of the overall signal. Their method of electrode fabrication is also impressive. It seems to work just about every time.
--
Get solar power for what you pay your utility now: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Obligitory...

[bronzey214]

...Yvan Eht Nioj

Article excerpts

[gvc]

New Scientist:

Could it really be true that nuclear fusion can be coaxed into action at room temperature, using only simple lab equipment? Most nuclear physicists don't think so, and dismiss Gordon's pitted piece of plastic as nothing more than the result of a badly conceived experiment.

Naturwissenschaften article, last sentence:

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

Article Erratum

[gvc]

The Naturwissenschaften authors published an erratum in a later issue stating that the effect they had observed was explained by the following paper, of which they were unaware: Ultra low momentum neutron catalyzed nuclear reactions on metallic hydride surfaces [newenergytimes.com]

As with Fission...

[SixFactor]

...it's all about probabilities.

For my fellow nukes out there, remember cross-sections [wikipedia.org]? [Note to self: Wikipedia is like the duct tape of encyclopedias; there's nothing it can't do, but do use with caution]. If the experimenters can improve the probability of the reaction's occurrence, then sure, fusion can result. I mean, who would have thought that less than 100 years ago, setting up a pile of graphite bricks with bits of U metal at Stagg Field [wikipedia.org] would have spawned an entire industry for energy and

energy from a wire and magnetic field? Brilliant

[Locutus]

It's called Ampere's Law(http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mag netic/magcur.html ).
Your tax dollars at work. ;-)

I didn't bother with the article due to the subject matter being of little interest other than to show how money and minds are being wasted. IMO.

LoB

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

Really? I don't recall the part of Ampere's Law that mentions the production of energetic subatomic particles. That's what this story is about. They aren't claiming excess energy production. That was in the SUMMARY.

Re:

[Locutus]

They are reporting on the reproducible detection of highly energetic charged particles from a wire coated in palladium-deuterium and subjected to either an electric or a magnetic field.

As stated, I didn't bother to read the article and so I'm only commenting on the /. summary. I also thought that electron flow was the movement of electrons and electrons were part of an atom( sub-atomic maybe ) and had a charge. THAT lead me to the comment regarding Ampere's Law of electron flow in a wire induced by a changi

Doubtful

[IvyKing]

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

The most amusing comment was that they were able to recreate Fleischman and Pons 'excess energy' - but pointed out that the palladium electrodes became more resistive when absorbing hydrogen and that they were using constant current power supplies (hint: Fleischman and Pons weren't monitoring the power supply voltage).

Re:

[Nefarious Wheel]

Yep, that was amusing. Now I'm interested in how poorly-monitored power supplies can produce measureable quantities of tritium.

Re:

[IvyKing]

I'd believe they're creating fusion if they produce measurable amounts of 3He. At low energies, D(D,n)3He is about as likely as D(D,p)T - in other words, they should be producing shitloads of neutrons.

Tritium is found in most sources of water. Just about any process used for enriching deuterium will also likely be equally as good for enriching tritium.

Theory

[Darth Cider]

Pons and Fleischmann didn't begin with lab experiments but with a theory, that protons packed together under intense pressure would have a quantum probability of fusing, similar to the way that electrons tunnel. Palladium soaks up hydrogen (that's why it is used) and inside a palladium electrode, the hydrogen is forced by electric charge to be highly pressurized. Lab experiments have verified that funny things happen, resembling nuclear fusion, but to say there is no plausible theory as to why is just plain wrong.

in case you were wondering the Navy's connection..

[dAzED1]

right now China has made us look like asses by very effectively using very old tech (diesel-run subs) to sneak up on US carrier groups a couple times. They charge up massive batteries with the diesel engines, then can run for a while completely silent, and at the same temp as their environment.

We were brainiacs and went to nuclear power for many of our more important subs, which run very *hot*, even if they are silent. They can be seen easily due to their thermal footprint.

Cold fusion, therefore, would be

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

[BCW2]

Have you ever served on a sub? I question your knowledge. The way you detect a nuclear sub is still by noise, normally the cooling pumps for the reactor. Cold fusion would eliminate those pumps and the noise that goes with it. A diesel electric has always been the quitest boat under the sea and anyone can sneak up on a surface task force. We used to joke about the skimmers pinging away like they could find something with active sonar, what a joke! We could hear them pinging over 50 miles away, with that kind of head start did they stand a chance of finding us? Hell NO!. Every exercise with a USN task force or RN ended with us inside the screen and execise shots passing under the flagship. Nobody ever tracked us thermally because it mixes with the surrounding water to fast. Now a P3 with a MAD unit (magnetic anomally detector) was a bitch to get away from! That was the only thing that could ever find us when we didn't want to be found. The Soviets were always 3 generations behind in quieting and sonar.
signed - a cold war sub sailor

Not unexpected.

[Entropius]

Keep in mind that the purpose of military R&D isn't to develop working products; it's to get funding to continue work. This is especially true for the pseudoprivate military contractors like Boeing and Raytheon, but also partly true for groups like Spawar... who tend to be less greedy but also less concerned with actually making something that works. Military R&D labs and contractors don't manufacture products; they manufacture grants.

Saying "They must be on to something, because they're still doing

Budget

[mdsolar]

Actually, the budget that funded this paper was a few thousand dollars a year of discretionary funds http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET19.htm#ee [newenergytimes.com]. One of the main contributions of Navy labs to this field is metalurgical skills. There has been actual funding from time to time but for the most part people work on this on their own time.
--
Go solar sooner: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

It MUST be true, they have a PICTURE...

[dpbsmith]

...of the very piece of CR-39 plastic that detected the atomic particles. And it even has a genuine Roosevelt dime next to it. What more proof could you want?

No, wait, it's only a piece of CR-39 plastic like the one that detected the atomic particles. Never mind.

Re:

[mochan_s]

This is completely useless and a waste of time. Everyone knows if they need it they have Naquadah Generators at their disposal!

Get with the times. ZPM [wikipedia.org] is the energy source of choice now. Naquadah is backup.

Either way its the Air Force that has them...

[Cyno01]

Not the Navy.

Re:

[doktorjayd]

y'see!

its useless drivel like this that makes wikipedia look like a comedic joke. ( aside from the politicians pumping their own ( or opponents ) entries... thats just comedy )

when i want to find shit out, i like to search wikipedia. when it comes up with 'naquadah generators' it makes you think the thing is driven by a bunch of high school trekkies with far too much time on their hands.

sorry for the rant jimbo, but please keep this shit out of wikia or whatever the wikipedia #2 is called.

Re:

[Dadoo]

its useless drivel like this that makes wikipedia look like a comedic joke.

Oh, stop. Like it or not, Stargate is part of our culture, now. If "naquadah generators" don't belong on WikiPedia, neither do things like kryptonite or "the silver bullet", and I'm pretty sure most people will argue that with you.

Re:

[dAzED1]

absolutely incorrect. It is perfectly valid, in science and almost any other field, to clarify that your results are reproducible. In fact, in science and nearly any other field, if you can't reproduce the results yourself, people don't want to know about it.

In this particular field, it is in fact important to clarify such a thing. It could be that you only saw signs that you stumbled upon, not quite understanding them, but they looked like fusion took place. Others might still want to look at your lab

Re:

[mdsolar]

Actually, in a field where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, reporting being able to get it to work consistently is progress. As you point out others would validate, but this is more like saying you're out of alpha and into beta. It is a little more than that, too. If they can do it over an over again, if someone else cannot, then it is more likely to be a problem with the other set up than a fluke in the original. It also means they are ready to share their skill (beta rather than alpha ag