OMG cold fusion - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Slavakion · 06-08-2005, 09:16 AM

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7654627/

Quote:

A key part of the apparatus for the nuclear fusion experiment is in the foreground. In the background are researchers Seth Putterman, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski.

MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 2:56 p.m. ET April 27, 2005

Scientists say they have achieved small-scale nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment, using tried and true techniques that are expected to generate far less controversy than past such claims.

This latest experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While the energy created was too small to harness cheap fusion power, the technique could have potential uses in medicine, spacecraft propulsion, the oil drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Putterman and his colleagues at UCLA, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski, report their results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Past derision
Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with skepticism and even derision by physicists.

In one of the most notable cases, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England shocked the world in 1989 when they announced that they had achieved so-called cold fusion at room temperature. Their work was discredited after repeated attempts to reproduce it failed.

Another technique, known as sonoluminescence, generates heat through the collapse of tiny bubbles in a liquid. Some scientists claim that nuclear fusion occurs during the reaction, but those claims have sparked sharp debate.

Fusion experts said the UCLA experiment will face far less skepticism because it conforms to well-known principles of physics.

"This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a tried and true method," David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told The Associated Press. "There's no mystery in terms of the physics."

In a Nature commentary, Michael Saltmarsh of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said the UCLA process was in some ways "remarkably low-tech," drawing upon principles that were first recorded by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus in 314 B.C.

Ultimate energy source
Fusion power has been touted as the ultimate energy source and a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels like coal and oil. Fossil fuels are expected to run short in about 50 years.

A view inside the crystal-based fusion chamber: "This is an amazing photo," UCLA's Seth Putterman says. "You're actually looking at the tracks of the fusion in the scintillator."

In fusion, light atoms are joined in a high-temperature process that frees large amounts of energy. It is considered environmentally friendly because it produces virtually no air pollution and does not pose the safety and long-term radioactive waste concerns associated with modern nuclear power plants, where heavy uranium atoms are split to create energy in a process known as fission.

In the UCLA experiment, scientists placed a tiny crystal that can generate a strong electric field into a vacuum chamber filled with deuterium gas, a form of hydrogen capable of fusion. Then the researchers activated the crystal by heating it.

The resulting electric field created a beam of charged deuterium atoms that struck a nearby target, which was embedded with yet more deuterium. When some of the deuterium atoms in the beam collided with their counterparts in the target, they fused.

The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with subatomic particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in — an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.

Commercial uses
UCLA's Putterman said future experiments will focus on refining the technique for potential commercial uses, including designing portable neutron generators that could be used for oil well drilling or scanning luggage and cargo at airports.

The technology also could conceivably give rise to implantable radiation sources, which could target cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. "You could bring a tiny crystal into the body, place it next to a tumor, turn on the radiation and blast the tumor," Putterman told MSNBC.com.

In the Nature report, Putterman and his colleagues said the crystal-based method could be used in "microthrusters for miniature spacecraft." In such an application, the method would not rely on nuclear fusion for power generation, but rather on ion propulsion, Putterman said.

"As wild as it is, that’s a conservative application," he said.

While this may very well turn out to be another CF fiasco, at least this time the scientists involved are offering testable experiments and evidence.

*crosses fingers*

tecoyah · 06-08-2005, 09:22 AM

One can only hope for the best here......and I do

braisler · 06-08-2005, 09:41 AM

What a boon for mankind if this finally plays out to be workable! I look forward to other groups verifying their findings and expanding on them.

frogza · 06-08-2005, 09:52 AM

I'm hoping this becomes all they hope it will. We could certainl use a better way to get energy.

stingc · 06-08-2005, 11:31 AM

As it stands, this is isn't really a better way to get energy. You don't get out more than what you put in, which has been the problem for the last 50+ years.

Slavakion · 06-08-2005, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stingc

As it stands, this is isn't really a better way to get energy. You don't get out more than what you put in, which has been the problem for the last 50+ years.

Yeah, and that's going to be the problem as long as existence is bound by the laws of thermodynamics... but this would be a virtually limitless source of energy. Where fossil fuels are starting to dwindle, deuterium is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. There's enough floating in the ocean that we wouldn't run out in the forseeable future.

stingc · 06-08-2005, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slavakion

Yeah, and that's going to be the problem as long as existence is bound by the laws of thermodynamics... but this would be a virtually limitless source of energy. Where fossil fuels are starting to dwindle, deuterium is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. There's enough floating in the ocean that we wouldn't run out in the forseeable future.

No, that's not what I mean. Of course total energy is always going to be conserved, but I was speaking practically (i.e. ignoring internal energy). This idea requires an external power source. The amount of energy that can be extracted is much less than what needs to be put in by that external source. An H-bomb, for example, does not have this property (although it isn't controllable). The technology described here cannot be used to replace
fossil fuels/fission. That dream is still very far off.

spindles · 06-09-2005, 12:25 AM

Yes, but this may be a first step in making it into a viable energy source. The energy produced by the fusion obviously has to be greater than the energy required to produce it... one day

Phage · 06-13-2005, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spindles

Yes, but this may be a first step in making it into a viable energy source. The energy produced by the fusion obviously has to be greater than the energy required to produce it... one day

Fusion is not a new concept, it has been achieved in reactors before. The problem has always been to make a reactor which puts out more usable energy than is input and that is something this does not do. This new way of doing things is interesting in that it is small, but I don't see how it helps the business of making fusion practical.

Zeraph · 06-13-2005, 10:12 PM

Each step, even if they deviate from the path, brings us closer to solving a problem.

Phage · 06-13-2005, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeraph

Each step, even if they deviate from the path, brings us closer to solving a problem.

That sounds nice when you say it, but it does not hold true. I think we can all agree that when trying to break the sound barrier it would have been useless to experiment with chicken-cheese interactions because it did not address the underlying problem of maintaining stability at extreme speeds. The problem with fusion today is that more energy is put into making things fuse than can be extracted; I don't see this project addressing that problem.

flat5 · 06-14-2005, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phage

I think we can all agree that when trying to break the sound barrier it would have been useless to experiment with chicken-cheese interactions.

Too bad. I like chicken & cheese, but I tend to eat too fast as it is.

d*d · 06-14-2005, 04:38 AM

he experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in — an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.

Unlike this one, cold fusion is this centurys alchemy.

Slavakion · 06-14-2005, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by d*d

Unlike this one, cold fusion is this centurys alchemy.

Transmutation of lead into gold was never accomplished. Cold fusion just was. There's a big difference. Although it's pretty useless now, I'm sure things can be improved. Take my TI-83+ calculator: I'm sure that it has more computing power than UNIVAC.

side note: Not all alchemy was about transmutation into gold or creating the Elixir of Life. A lot of it was simple purification and chemical reactions. Alchemy was primitive chemistry, given a bad name by the goal of lead into gold.

Phage · 06-14-2005, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slavakion

Transmutation of lead into gold was never accomplished. Cold fusion just was.

Ehh, that is very questionable. The people who claimed to have produced cold fusion were never able to reproduce their results and so are widely believed to be either mistaken at best or liars at worst.

Quote:

Originally Posted by d*d

...cold fusion is this centurys alchemy.

I would not go so far as to label cold fusion as akin to alchemy; after all fusion is proven to be possible and as Slavakion said it just needs some improvement. The bomb proves that energy output can greatly exceed input so the concept is sound, but it is the mechanics of energy extraction while balancing the reaction at a point where it produces energy but does not run out of control that elude us.

Slavakion · 06-14-2005, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phage

Ehh, that is very questionable. The people who claimed to have produced cold fusion were never able to reproduce their results and so are widely believed to be either mistaken at best or liars at worst.

I don't mean the guys a few years ago that kept all of their work a secret because they knew how flawed it was. At least this is based on something that has been disclosed to the public (or scientific community) fully. I haven't read a follow-up confirming this, but it doesn't sound like BS yet.

d*d · 06-15-2005, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phage

The bomb proves that energy output can greatly exceed input so the concept is sound, but it is the mechanics of energy extraction while balancing the reaction at a point where it produces energy but does not run out of control that elude us.

No, energy cannot be created or destroyed, the bomb does not output more energy than was input, that is impossible - and that is what cold fusion implies

Phage · 06-15-2005, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by d*d

No, energy cannot be created or destroyed, the bomb does not output more energy than was input, that is impossible - and that is what cold fusion implies

You are right that energy must be conserved, but that is not what I was saying. Fusion bombs are jumpstarted by fission bombs because the fusion reaction requires high temperatures and intense pressures. Viewing it from the standpoint of a reaction you input the energy of a fission bomb and it will "produce" several hundred times that energy in output. Of course this is all extracted from the tritium, deuterium, or lithium used as fuel but the point is that as a reaction that energy was unavailable without a significant energy input.

Cold fusion does not imply that more energy can be extracted than is input, it is the claim that a fusion reaction can be caused at temperatures and perhaps pressures lower than is conventionally understood possible. While skepticism is warrented for their process actually creating the conditions required for fusion, the term "cold fusion" does not itself imply breaking the laws of thermodynamics.

06-08-2005, 09:22 AM	#2 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	One can only hope for the best here......and I do __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

06-09-2005, 12:25 AM	#8 (permalink)
spindles Mine is an evil laugh Location: Sydney, Australia	Yes, but this may be a first step in making it into a viable energy source. The energy produced by the fusion obviously has to be greater than the energy required to produce it... one day __________________ who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

06-08-2005, 09:41 AM	#3 (permalink)
braisler Addict Location: Midway, KY	What a boon for mankind if this finally plays out to be workable! I look forward to other groups verifying their findings and expanding on them.

06-08-2005, 09:52 AM	#4 (permalink)
frogza Registered User Location: Right Here	I'm hoping this becomes all they hope it will. We could certainl use a better way to get energy.

06-08-2005, 11:31 AM	#5 (permalink)
stingc Psycho Location: PA	As it stands, this is isn't really a better way to get energy. You don't get out more than what you put in, which has been the problem for the last 50+ years.

06-13-2005, 10:12 PM	#10 (permalink)
Zeraph Banned Location: The Cosmos	Each step, even if they deviate from the path, brings us closer to solving a problem.

06-14-2005, 04:38 AM	#13 (permalink)
d*d Addict	he experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in — an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough. Unlike this one, cold fusion is this centurys alchemy.