Cold fusion, again?
- Thread starter steingar
- Start date
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
It would be better if CBS listed scientific references (but not their style- it would be wasted on the masses). People have been looking at it the past 20 years as indicated in the article, nothing new seems to have come up.
Trapper John
Ejection Handle Pulled
Some duplications of the experiment and results by peers would be useful...
Trapper John
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
As a disclaimer, I don't follow this research so there is probably (a lot of) work of which I am unaware.
Pons and Fleishman did see something unusual and attributed the observations to cold fusion. As the experiments were duplicated, some experimental observations had explanations other than cold fusion. The more recent work has been confirming or disproving these alternate explanations. The scientists have been applying "Occams razor" which suggests the simplest explanation for an effect is likely the correct one.
I'd like for it to be true too, but they are still working on it. I'm glad there's enough mystery for them to continue working on it. If not cold fusion, maybe something else useful will come form this research.
IMHO, at this point in time, this ranks with "Food XXX found to reduce risk of YYY cancer...details at 11" as far as newsworthy items.
As they said, the experiment has been duplicated. They had the engineer who looked over the Israeli lab's data and technique who couldn't find a flaw.
It looks like the major error might be in calling it fusion when it could be some other previously unknown phenomenon.
steingar
Taxi to Parking
Whatever the phenomenon is, it makes energy, at least according to its proponents. Moreover, it does so without the negative side-effects inherent in most of our current forms of energy.
Trapper John
Ejection Handle Pulled
Not enough repeatability to pass muster yet, anyway.
If fusion is happening, there shouldn't be a whole lot of trouble in finding the Helium produced, should there? But I didn't see anything in the 60 minutes article about Helium...
Trapper John
JeffDG
Touchdown! Greaser!
I have little to no faith in the media when reporting science, but I certainly wish these guys luck in getting this working.
The odds of success may be low, but the potential upside is astronomical!
The odds of success may be low, but the potential upside is astronomical!
gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
I remain deeply suspicious of this for several reasons. A big one is the lack of peer review (i.e duplicated results by multiple competent parties). The notion of going public with such a "discovery" before it's accepted by a significant portion of the scientific community goes against the basic principles of most scientists and makes it feel a lot more like a publicity stunt than real research results. In addition to that, in order to release "nuclear" energy (i.e. energy resulting from the creation of more stable nuclei from less stable ones) pretty much has to release that energy in the form of high energy waves/particles because of the high energy involved (this high energy is the whole goal) yet there's no indication that any such wave/particles are being created, just "heat" aka very low energy waves. The final blow is the admitted lack of consistency in test results. It's pretty well understood that the conversion of a pair of hydrogen nuclei into a single helium nucleus releases a specific amount and kind of energy for each helium nucleus formed, it seems extremely unlikely that this would be affected by the conditions under which those nuclei were formed.
I won't say the notion of controlled fusion at less than internal solar temps isn't possible but right now I'd say this report is about 99+% likely to be false.
I won't say the notion of controlled fusion at less than internal solar temps isn't possible but right now I'd say this report is about 99+% likely to be false.
Now that I think about it 1) if all they could find as a lab site in the US is SRI, those are the goofs who let themselves be fooled by Uri Geller.
2) When you hear excuses like "The ones that had no success didn't prepare the paladium right," it sounds just like quackery. "We have seekrit process that mainstream science disdains..."
Uri Geller and quackery and 60 Minutes who I still can't forgive for the Audi debacle, .... I'm changing my vote until some lab at MIT buys in.
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Trapper John
Ejection Handle Pulled
Maybe they could find a way to harness the energy of all those Audis accelerating by themselves...
Trapper John
Trapper John
The energy came from the plaintiffs' lawyers group calling themselves the "Audi Victims' Network," the same lawyers whose contingent-fee lawsuits stood to make them millions.
If they won.
Which they didn't. Audi never settled a case, never lost a case.
gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
But they did go ahead and design in a brake/gearshift interlock. I gotta give them credit for making their product less prone to driver error instead of worrying about the next lawyer claiming that the change was an implicit admission of a design flaw. Amazingly some idiot drivers even manage let their cars get away from them (unintentional acceleration) with a stick shift, further proof that you cannot completely prevent stupidity by design.
Keith Lane
Pattern Altitude
bullwinkle
Pattern Altitude
Actually there have been MANY reproductions of this experiment, some of them producing hundreds of times the input energy. Many different catalysts and combinations of metals have been tried. But since nobody really knows *why* it works, it's hard to figure out why it does sometimes and not other times. Some people think it's impurities in the metals, others think there is another factor that has not been accounted for. Either way, I'm convinced with most of the scientists involved that there is something there, just not sure what yet.
Didn't know that. Good for Audi. I'm thinking I need to look at one for me now.
I imagine whatever money they would saved by settling would be lost many times over in the intangible further damage to the reputation of the product. The problem is most execs don't consider the intangible costs because they can't be put into a chart on the executive summary in Powerpoint.
I just turned on the TV to a college course talking about how Cessna put the piston singles back into production after the GARA act was signed (in only 1992!
) the Cessna exec talked about how they had to price the risk into the product and since Citations were flown by pros who were trained with Cessna's partner, Flight Safety, the risks were much less. Fascinating. I need to try to record that show.
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The common problem here is that the connotation for any nuclear event requires a bomb type/level reaction in the general publics mind.
Is it nuclear fusion? Define nuclear fusion.... From my definition, he may have it. To this point we always consider nuclear reactions to be on the grand scale, but there is no immutable law that says this must be. Paladium is one of the elements in the catalytic converter of your car. It has some interesting properties. Is it nuclear fusion? I can't say if it is or isn't. The questions that stand at this point for me are Is it on BTU parity? and is it economically viable. Paladium ain't exactly cheap, and how many BTUs/$ excess energy per BTU/$ do we get.
steingar
Taxi to Parking
If the palladium really is catalytic, it doesn't matter. If you can put it in every car on the road, you can use it for power generation.
As I understand it individual fusion reactions don't make H-bomb's worth of power, 14 MeV's according to Wikki. That's about 10 to the minus 12 Joules of energy, not enough to heat a teacup of water 1 degree Celsius. It takes a fair number to do an H-bomb's worth of damage. On the other hand, if the things can make heat, and there is enough palladium to make a bunch of them, you have power, so long as the Palladium is catalytic and not consumed in the reaction. I am still somewhat skeptical, but something like this usually doesn't stick around this long if there's nothing to it. I guess I'm using the "where there's smoke there's fire" argument.
As I understand it individual fusion reactions don't make H-bomb's worth of power, 14 MeV's according to Wikki. That's about 10 to the minus 12 Joules of energy, not enough to heat a teacup of water 1 degree Celsius. It takes a fair number to do an H-bomb's worth of damage. On the other hand, if the things can make heat, and there is enough palladium to make a bunch of them, you have power, so long as the Palladium is catalytic and not consumed in the reaction. I am still somewhat skeptical, but something like this usually doesn't stick around this long if there's nothing to it. I guess I'm using the "where there's smoke there's fire" argument.
Cap'n Jack
Final Approach
Here's more information from a source more likely to be reputable than CBS News:
http://www.scientificcomputing.com/Cold-Fusion-Rebirth-New-Evidence-for-LENR.aspx
The work was presented at the American Chemical Society meeting a few weeks back. The researchers listed in the article claim to have found neutrons and other evidence of fusion.
http://www.scientificcomputing.com/Cold-Fusion-Rebirth-New-Evidence-for-LENR.aspx
The work was presented at the American Chemical Society meeting a few weeks back. The researchers listed in the article claim to have found neutrons and other evidence of fusion.