[IP] Cold Fusion Back From the Dead
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger@xxxxxxx>
Date: September 3, 2004 3:48:32 PM EDT
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Dave Farber
<dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Cold Fusion Back From the Dead
Cold Fusion Back From the Dead
U.S. Energy Department gives true believers a new hearing
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/sep04/0904nfus.html
Later this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive a report
from a panel of experts on the prospects for cold fusion—the supposed
generation of thermonuclear energy using tabletop apparatus. It's an
extraordinary reversal of fortune: more than a few heads turned earlier
this year when James Decker, the deputy director of the DOE's Office of
Science, announced that he was initiating the review of cold fusion
science. Back in November 1989, it had been the department's own
investigation that determined the evidence behind cold fusion was
unconvincing. Clearly, something important has changed to grab the
department's attention now.
The cold fusion story began at a now infamous press conference in
March
1989. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, both electrochemists
working at
the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, announced that they had
created
fusion using a battery connected to palladium electrodes immersed in a
bath of water in which the hydrogen was replaced with its isotope
deuterium—so-called heavy water. With this claim came the idea that
tabletop fusion could produce more or less unlimited, low-cost, clean
energy.
In physicists' traditional view of fusion, forcing two deuterium nuclei
close enough together to allow them to fuse usually requires
temperatures
of tens of millions of degrees Celsius. The claim that it could be done
at
room temperature with a couple of electrodes connected to a battery
stretched credulity [see photo, "Too Good to Be True?"].
But while some scientists reported being able to reproduce the result
sporadically, many others reported negative results, and cold fusion
soon
took on the stigma of junk science.
Today the mainstream view is that champions of cold fusion are little
better than purveyors of snake oil and good luck charms. Critics say
that
the extravagant claims behind cold fusion need to be backed with
exceptionally strong evidence, and that such evidence simply has not
materialized. "To my knowledge, nothing has changed that makes cold
fusion
worth a second look," says Steven Koonin, a member of the panel that
evaluated cold fusion for the DOE back in 1989, who is now chief
scientist
at BP, the London-based energy company.
Because of such attitudes, science has all but ignored the phenomenon
for
15 years. But a small group of dedicated researchers have continued to
investigate it. For them, the DOE's change of heart is a crucial step
toward being accepted back into the scientific fold. Behind the scenes,
scientists in many countries, but particularly in the United States,
Japan,
and Italy, have been working quietly for more than a decade to
understand
the science behind cold fusion. (Today they call it low-energy nuclear
reactions, or sometimes chemically assisted nuclear reactions.) For
them,
the department's change of heart is simply a recognition of what they
have
said all along—whatever cold fusion may be, it needs explaining by the
proper process of science.
THE FIRST HINT that the tide may be changing came in February 2002,
when
the U.S. Navy revealed that its researchers had been studying cold
fusion
on the quiet more or less continuously since the debacle began. Much
of
this work was carried out at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems
Center in
San Diego, where the idea of generating energy from sea water—a good
source
of heavy water—may have seemed more captivating than at other
laboratories.
Many researchers at the center had worked with Fleischmann, a
well-respected electrochemist, and found it hard to believe that he was
completely mistaken. What's more, the Navy encouraged a culture of
risk-taking in research and made available small amounts of funding for
researchers to pursue their own interests.
At San Diego and other research centers, scientists built up an
impressive
body of evidence that something strange happened when a current passed
through palladium electrodes placed in heavy water.
And by 2002, a number of Navy scientists believed it was time to
throw
down the gauntlet. A two-volume report, entitled "Thermal and nuclear
aspects of the Pd/D2O system," contained a remarkable plea for proper
funding from Frank Gordon, the head of navigation and applied science
at
the Navy center. "It is time that this phenomenon be investigated so
that
we can reap whatever benefits accrue from scientific understanding.
It is
time for government funding agencies to invest in this research," he
wrote.
The report was noted by the DOE but appeared to have little impact.
Then, last August, in a small hotel near the Massachusetts Institute
of
Technology, in Cambridge, some 150 engineers and scientists met for the
Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. Conference observers
were
struck by the careful way in which various early criticisms of the
research
were being addressed. Over the years, a number of groups around the
world
have reproduced the original Pons-Fleischmann excess heat effect,
yielding
sometimes as much as 250 percent of the energy put in.
To be sure, excess energy by itself is not enough to establish that
fusion is taking place. In addition to energy, critics are quick to
emphasize, the fusion of deuterium nuclei should produce other
byproducts,
such as helium and the hydrogen isotope tritium. Evidence of these
byproducts has been scant, though Antonella de Ninno and colleagues
from
the Italian National Agency for New Technologies Energy and the
Environment, in Rome, have found strong evidence of helium generation
when
the palladium cells are producing excess heat but not otherwise.
Other researchers are finally beginning to explain why the
Pons-Fleischmann
effect has been difficult to reproduce. Mike McKubre from SRI
International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher who is
influential among those pursuing cold fusion, says that the effect can
be
reliably seen only once the palladium electrodes are packed with
deuterium
at ratios of 100 percent—one deuterium atom for every palladium atom.
His
work shows that if the ratio drops by as little as 10 points, to 90
percent, only 2 experimental runs in 12 produce excess heat, while all
runs
at a ratio of 100 percent produce excess heat.
And scientists are beginning to get a better handle on exactly how the
effect occurs. Stanislaw Szpak and colleagues from the Space and Naval
Warfare Systems Command have taken infrared video images of palladium
electrodes as they produce excess energy. It turns out that the heat
is not
produced continuously over the entire electrode but only in hot spots
that
erupt and then die on the electrode surface. This team also has
evidence of
curious mini-explosions on the surface.
Fleischmann, who is still involved in cold fusion as an advisor to a
number of groups, feels vindicated. He told the conference: "I believe
that
the work carried out thus far amply illustrates that there is a new and
richly varied field of research waiting to be explored." (Pons is no
longer
involved in the field, having dropped from view after a laboratory he
joined in southern France ceased operations.)
For Peter Hagelstein, an electrical engineer at MIT who works on the
theory behind cold fusion and who chaired the August 2003 conference,
the
quality of the papers was hugely significant. "It's obvious that there
are
effects going on," he says. He and two colleagues believed the results
were
so strong that they were worth drawing to the attention of the DOE, and
late last year they secured a meeting with the department's Decker.
It was a meeting that paid off dramatically. The review will give cold
fusion researchers a chance—perhaps their last—to show their mettle.
The
department has yet to decide just what will be done and by whom. There
is
no guarantee of funding or of future support. But for a discipline
whose
name has become a byword for junk science, the DOE's review is a big
opportunit
--
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/