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<font color="#cc0033" face="verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif"
size="-1"><b> Cold fusion</b></font>
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<font face="verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif" size="+1"><b>Honest!</b><br>
</font><font color="#999999" face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif"
size="-2">
<div>Apr 28th 2005
<br>
>From The Economist print edition</div>
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<font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1"><b>A
report of a desktop experiment that produces nuclear fusion is bound to
raise eyebrows. But this time, the results look convincing</b></font><br>
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<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">PHYSICISTS
who meddle with cold fusion, like psychologists who dabble in the
paranormal, are likely to be labelled quacks by their peers. This is
due to an infamous incident in 1989 when Stanley Pons and Martin
Fleischmann held a press conference to announce their discovery of
nuclear fusion in what amounted to a test-tube full of water connected
to a battery. In particular, they said that they were getting more
energy out of the process than they put into it. Their result was
instantly dubbed “cold fusion”, to contrast it with giant
fusion-reactor experiments that attempt to reproduce the ultra-high
temperatures found inside the sun. But when it failed to stand up to
scrutiny, confusion—and eventually outrage—ensued. </font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">In 2002,
history repeated itself as farce with the announcement by a group at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee of fusion inside the bubbles
that are produced by ultrasonic waves travelling through a liquid. This
result passed the peer-review process, but was immediately attacked by
another group—from the same laboratory—which claimed to find no such
effect. There was a counterclaim by yet a third team last year, and a
final verdict on “bubble fusion” is still not in. But most people have
lost interest in the debate, assuming that anyone claiming to have
observed fusion in a desktop experiment is a crank or a fraud. This
attitude, however, may yet turn out to be mistaken. Desk-top fusion may
be possible after all, according to an article published in this week's
<i>Nature</i> by three researchers at the University of California, Los
Angeles (<font size="-1">UCLA</font>). </font></p>
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<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">Brian
Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski and Seth Putterman have been meticulous in their
experiment, and in particular in their measurement of one of the
tell-tales of nuclear fusion, the production of neutrons. Their results
have been peer-reviewed, and they make no wild claims of surplus energy
being produced. Given past excesses, such caution is understandable.
And it may indeed be the case that their technique, which involves
banging together the nuclei of deuterium atoms (a heavy form of
hydrogen) using a tiny crystal in a palm-sized vacuum chamber, will
never provide a source of power. It could have some interesting
applications, nonetheless.</font></p>
<br>
<div><font face="verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif"><b><a
name="energy_from_crystals">Energy from crystals</a></b></font></div>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1"> In
principle, nuclear fusion is a simple process. All you have to do is
push two suitable atomic nuclei close enough together for them to
overcome their mutual electrical repulsion (since both are positively
charged) and they will merge. This merger releases oodles of energy.
The usual way to push nuclei together is to smash them into one another
at high speed. In thermonuclear fusion (the sort that happens in the
sun, in hydrogen bombs, and in traditional fusion experiments) that
speed is achieved by heating the atoms up. But this, as Dr Naranjo and
his colleagues realised, is not the only way to do things. You can, as
they have done, simply accelerate a stream of nuclei to high velocity,
and fire them into a stationary target.</font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">Traditional
accelerators, such as those used in particle-physics experiments, use
high-voltage electricity to achieve this acceleration. However, they
are cumbersome and they consume a lot of power while doing so. Dr
Naranjo, by contrast, has devised a compact way of generating high
voltages at much lower power using a so-called pyroelectric crystal. </font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">Heating such
a crystal (or, rather, warming it from -30°C to just above freezing
point) deforms its structure in a way that concentrates positive charge
in one place and negative charge in another. That results in a big
voltage between the two. The researchers then amplified the effect of
the positive charge by attaching a metal tip to the place where it was
accumulating. This concentrated the electrical field in the same way
that the point of a lightning conductor concentrates the stroke. </font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">Dr Naranjo
used this effect two ways: first to strip deuterium atoms of their
electrons and second to repel the resulting stream of deuterium nuclei
at high speed towards a target containing more deuterium. When two
deuterium nuclei (each composed of a proton and a neutron) fuse, the
result is a type of helium composed of two protons and a neutron, a
free neutron, and a lot of energy. The bombardment also produces a lot
of <font size="-1">X</font>-rays. By counting the neutrons and
measuring the <font size="-1">X</font>-rays the researchers estimate
that about 1,000 pairs of deuterium nuclei were fusing every second.</font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">This is, as
they are the first to admit, a long way from producing a significant
amount of energy. And although they reckon they could boost the fusion
rate 1,000-fold with better apparatus, that still might not reach the
magic threshold of producing more energy than it takes to run the
experiment. Beyond that, they are understandably unwilling to speculate.</font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1">This does
not, however, mean that their device will have no applications. With
only a little tweaking it could be turned into a handheld <font
size="-1">X</font>-ray
scanner, which would be a significant medical advance. Not yet a
precursor to a starship engine, perhaps, but maybe an ancestor of Dr
McCoy's portable diagnosis machine.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1"><a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3909490"><
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3909490 ></a><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif" size="-1"><br>
<br>
</font></p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html">< http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html ></a>
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
TLCB Web Site: <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org">< http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org ></a> [Southeast Asia
veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]</pre>
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