Cold Fusion Proven True by U.S. Navy Researchers

[Tom Ligon]

"I understand it may one day lead to something -- I just think the effect is too weak to justify interest (well, my interest). "

Actually, this is spot-on. Really the field would benefit if it simply did not interest most people one way or another. What it warrants is a few people who are seriously curious about it working quietly, doing quality work but not seeking attention.

What it does not need is the knee-jerk assumption that anyone looking into it is a kook. It developed a legacy of attracting the wrong kind of interest.

[CharlesKramer]

It can be reproduced by all experimenters about 1/2 the time.

That's a very specific assertion. Your source? So it's a reliable source of heat, as long as you have always have at least two to fire up at the same time because at least one will work?

Japan spent years and $20m investigating -- and that's apart from the $5 million Fleischman & Pons got from Toyota while in France. Many more millions were spent in the USA and elsewhere around the world over a 25 year period.

And still... no one has detected neutrons or transmutation with any certainty, and the heat produced is trivial (is there any confidence it is *ever* more than the energy put in?)

Until every and any lab can reproduce the SAME results using the same materials it's still voodoo -- possibly an equipment glitch, or an impurity in materials. Even when it "works" the results seem different from one place to the next -- for example, whether the reaction stops when no more energy is input, or how long the reaction lasts, or what temperatures it seems to achieve. To say SOMETHING happens "around" half the time is not the same as something that is reproducible.

What Navy's lab reports is irrelevant -- it's what everyone else reports at this stage.

Was Lilenthal's FET transistor real if no one could make one? Was it science? Was it boring?

The comparison is unfair. There was no doubt from the start that Lilenthal had discovered a real phenomenon OR that it could be useful. He was also a businessman with practical products from an early stage.

Cold fusion is the opposite. Even if something is happening, no one knows what it is. Even if something is happening, there is no reason to be confident it will be useful. Cold fusion has more to do with poltergeists, and the main thing interesting about it is the fascination with chasing shadows that aren't even that interesting as shadows. And they're not even the same shadows -- even when it "works" all that means is SOMETHING happens -- with how much, and how long varying from time to time. Witchcraft has higher standards.

What could the same amount of money have done for dense plasma focus? Or Polywell? Or steam engines? Or atomic batteries? Or better socks for people with long toes?

CBK

[CharlesKramer]

What it does not need is the knee-jerk assumption that anyone looking into it is a kook. It developed a legacy of attracting the wrong kind of interest.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true there's no doubt that:

-- Farnsworth/Hirsch/Polywell DOES create fusion?; and

-- design improvements have led to more fusion created for the amount of energy put in?; and

-- the device has the potential for clean energy on a world changing game-changing scale (overnight, nonsense about "clean coal" and global warming end as debates).

But for cold fusion none of that's true -- either that something nuclear is occurring, or that if it is occurring (or not) it will have any practical benefit. After 25 years the best that can be said is *something* (and it varies from time to time) seems to happen sometimes. Ridiculous.

Cold fusion has been chased with real money for 25 years. How is that not kooky when other technologies have been ignored -- technologies with a better chance of providing a benefit?

[CharlesKramer]

As opposed to very few of the experimenters in the beginning.

That's not science. Maybe the difference between then and now is the mechanisms used to try to obtain the result, or some impurity in the latest batches of Palladium or heavy water. Maybe something weird like chirality is going on (see Thalidomide).

Real reproducibility is the SAME result EVERY time. Half isn't good enough, and "something" happening every time isn't the same result.

For such a simple combination of ingredients, the amount of "progress" has been negligible. All the variables are still in play. And it's not for lack of funding.

[MSimon]

That's a very specific assertion. Your source? So it's a reliable source of heat, as long as you have always have at least two to fire up at the same time because at least one will work?

Um. This is research.

Like no one was planning to use Lilenthal's FET to power the radios of WW2.

As to it works about 1/2 the time? Well I read papers. The subject interested me enough to look into it.

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ArataYanewenergya.pdf

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ArataYdevelopmena.pdf

Do I buy the explanations given? No. But I do buy the results.

One needs to keep in mind that Fermi's explanation for beta decay was originally dismissed :

When Fermi submitted his famous paper on beta decay to the prestigious journal Nature, the journal's editor turned it down because "it contained speculations which were too remote from reality".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Barnha ... nology.pdf

Defense Analysis Report
DIA-08-0911-003 13 November 2009

Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance

Scientists worldwide have been quietly investigating low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) for the past 20 years. Researchers in this controversial field are now claiming paradigm-shifting results, including generation of large amounts of excess heat, nuclear activity and transmutation of elements. I ' 2,3 Although no current theory exists to explain all the reported phenomena, some scientists now believe quantum-level nuclear reactions may be occurring. DIA assesses with high con fidence that if LENR can produce nuclear-origin energy at room temperatures, this disruptive technology could revolutionize energy production and storage, since nuclear reactions release millions of times more energy per unit mass than do any known chemical fuel.'' 5

• Y. Iwamura l8 at Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries first detected transmutation of elements when permeating deuterium through palladium metal in 2002.

• Researchers led by Y. Arata at Osaka University in Japan 19 and a team led by V.Violante at ENEA in Italy (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and the Environment—the equivalent to the U.S. Department of Energy) 2° also made transmutation claims.

• Additional indications of transmutation have been reported in China, Russia, France, Ukraine, and the United States. 21 ' 22

• Researchers in Japan, Italy, Israel, and the United States have all reported detecting evidence of nuclear particle emissions. 23. 24

• Chinese researchers described LENR experiments in 1991 that generated so much heat that they caused an explosion that was not believed to be chemical in origin. 25

• Japanese, French, and U.S. scientists also have reported rapid, high-energy LENR releases leading to laboratory explosions, according to scientific journal articles from 1992 to 2009. 26' 27

• Israeli scientists reported in 2008 that they have applied pulsating electrical currents to their LENR experiments to increase the excess energy production. 28

• As of January 2008, India was reportedly considering restarting its LENR program after 14 years of dormancy. 29 U.S. LENR researchers also have reported results that support the phenomena of anomalous heat, nuclear particle production, and transmutation. 3°. 31 ' 32

• At the March 2009 American Chemical Society annual meeting, researchers at U.S. Navy SPAWAR Pacific reported excess energy, 33 nuclear particles, 34 and transmutation, 35 ' 36 stating that these effects were probably the result of nuclear reactions. 37

• A research team at the U.S. company SRI International has been studying the electrochemistry and kinetics of LENR since the early 1990's, reporting excess heat and helium production. 38
2
UNCLASSIFIED
UNCLASSIFIED

• In May 2002, researchers at JET Thermal in Massachusetts reported excess heat and optimal operating points for LENR manifolds. 39

• Researchers at the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center in California first reported anomalous power correlated with Helium-4 production in 1996. 40

[MSimon]

Real reproducibility is the SAME result EVERY time. Half isn't good enough, and "something" happening every time isn't the same result.

Dr. B fooled around with bad ideas re: Polywell for 11 years before he figured out the obvious. Then he said publicly how lame he was for not seeing the obvious.

BTW you are confusing investigation with engineering. Some investigations go fast - HT Superconductors. Some don't.

====

You might care to explain why FETs weren't in every American radio in WW2? The FET was patented in 1925. The knowledge was available.

Why did it take so long to invent zone refining of silicon? The knowledge to do it was well known.

====

Papers:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/LibFrame1.html

Lots of pdfs.

[chrismb]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true there's no doubt that:

-- Farnsworth/Hirsch/Polywell DOES create fusion?; and

correct

-- design improvements have led to more fusion created for the amount of energy put in?; and

not really

-- the device has the potential for clean energy on a world changing game-changing scale

Definitely not, in my opinion, vaguely believable in others. A bit like cold fusion, infact.

...duly corrected...

[MSimon]

chrismb is correct in his factual statements.

About his extrapolations there are some differences of OPINION. As chris noted.

[KitemanSA]

-- design improvements have led to more fusion created for the amount of energy put in? ...

Actually, I think the correct statement here is that the Polywell is claimed to have produced much more fusion at the low drive voltage than ever before. This does not YET equate to energy input (the magnet drive power is a killer in this equation at this size).

[CharlesKramer]

One of the things that interests me about LENR is what it has to say about present-day abundance of elements. If these reactions can occur in nature

I can believe it.

Not that it's the same thing, but water-mediated sustained fission appears to have occurred naturally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nu ... on_reactor

[Axil]

Man you guys are willing to be open to cold fusion, which has a sordid history and next to no evidence... but not other things which have copious amounts of evidence... it never ceases to amaze me.

Josh,

There is new evidence in Cold Fusion.

As there is in climate science. Hide The Decline.

Which of course doesn't invalidate climate science. And Watergate was just a third rate burglary.

====

I'm still waiting for you to explain why a gain of greater than one doesn't lead to a runaway situation. And if it does lead to that why we haven't seen it.

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Biberi ... plaine.pdf

[Axil]

The Navy has funded some very unorthodox energy technologies and for that they should be commended for their open minded approach. Included in these technologies are Polywell and LENR.

The latest results in the LENR field will be discussed next month in San Francisco at the ACS conference.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 030810.php

[IntLibber]

As opposed to very few of the experimenters in the beginning.

That's not science. Maybe the difference between then and now is the mechanisms used to try to obtain the result, or some impurity in the latest batches of Palladium or heavy water. Maybe something weird like chirality is going on (see Thalidomide).

Real reproducibility is the SAME result EVERY time. Half isn't good enough, and "something" happening every time isn't the same result.

For such a simple combination of ingredients, the amount of "progress" has been negligible. All the variables are still in play. And it's not for lack of funding.

Charles, this sort of a statement doesn't reflect reality, because in reality, researchers tend to modify their experiments for IP reasons: if you merely replicate what someone else did exactly, that only helps the value of THEIR IP and you've spent money adding value to their assets, not to yours. So researchers tend to modify the experiements in hopes that they'll get the same effect with the slight modification, because then they can patent that modification. Even back during the Pons and Fleischman days, I recall reading about many experiments to "reproduce" their work, but the researchers never actually replicated the exact experiment. For instance, the University of Washington did the experiment with iron instead of platinum, got a null result, and based on that flawed experiment, proclaimed Pons and Fleischman to be wrong.

[CharlesKramer]

Real reproducibility is the SAME result EVERY time. Half isn't good enough, and "something" happening every time isn't the same result..

Charles, this sort of a statement doesn't reflect reality, because in reality, researchers tend to modify their experiments for IP reasons

I'm an IP lawyer -- though not a patent lawyer -- but I still know a little about the patent "doctrine of equivalence" and the need to change steps in a process to create a new (well, new enough) and patentable variant.

But aren't you conceding my point? That -- for whatever reason -- LENR is mostly mysteries. At best one can say something odd happens often enough to be interesting, but what is happening, and the exact conditions to reproduce it, and whether it's nuclear, and whether (nuclear or not) it's useful is all still a mystery. That is different form a proven event that may take decades (or forever) to commercialize.

CBK

[Axil]

LENR is mostly mysteries. At best one can say something odd happens often enough to be interesting, but what is happening, and the exact conditions to reproduce it, and whether it's nuclear, and whether (nuclear or not) it's useful is all still a mystery.

Your opinion may be dated. There are many things going on in LENR.

One attempt to define a quantum mechanical based explanation for some LENR results can be found here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUNW5recQSo

Also, LENR experiments are repeatable. See the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyciIs53 ... re=related