Brian's Brain

EDN Senior Technical Editor Brian Dipert exposes, analyzes and
opines on diverse topics in technology. Follow the Brian's Brain Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/BrianzBrain.

Advertisement

Profile

About Me

RSS Feed

Add this blog to your RSS newsreader!

By Category

Consumer Electronics Design Articles

Blog

Brian's Brain

« Online Content's Got Game, Whi... | Main | Color Perception And Blindness... »

Monday, April 20, 2009

The Resurrection Of Cold Fusion: A Much-Needed Transfusion Or Continued Delusion?

Apr 20 2009 5:22PM | Permalink |Comments (34) |

I've occasionally read accounts of continued laboratory research into cold fusion since the Fleischmann-Pons announcement of 1989 was largely discredited, but I confess that in not practicing what I preach, I didn't give them much attention. The backlash from the bulk of the scientific community had seemed so unanimous and so persuasive that, no matter how much I wished for the discovery of an inexpensive, efficient, environmentally-sensitive and otherwise practical energy source, I found it easy to dismiss the remaining cold fusion advocates as Quixotic dreamers.

Too easy, perhaps, as it turns out. One of the segments on last night's episode of 60 Minutes left me feeling both confused and excited. Check it out:

Now I realize that 60 Minutes' core audience isn't exactly a collection of Nobel Prize laureates, so the situation was probably greatly simplified. And I realize that 60 Minutes is a pseudo-news (albeit much more 'news' and much less 'pseudo', IMHO, than many of its competitors) program that's highly motivated to cover eye-catching stories guaranteed to cultivate a large audience. However, both the researcher interviewed for the piece and the academic contracted by 60 Minutes to review the methodology and results (who walked away quite impressed) came across as highly credible to me. Conversely, the token naysayer came across as just that, rigidly fixed in his views and unwilling to revisit them, with no good reason given for his stubborness.

Give the clip 12 minutes and 32 seconds of your time, then sound off in the comments with your thoughts. Both your fellow readers and I welcome your reasoned perspectives on this controversial topic.

Reader Comments

at 4/20/2009 10:32:05 PM, Meredith Poor said:
While the 60 Minutes people probably did what they thought was a careful job of reporting, they most likely didn't look under the hood. In short, as long as governments are funding Cold Fusion or Just Enough Warming Confusion or whatever you call it, people are going to research it. The way their milestones are going to be reported is 'under very special non-repeatable circumstances we can observe excess heat'. As an aside, there aren't going to be very many laptops powered with a palladium electrode. Kitco (www.kitco.com) is one source of current and historical price trends on platinum group metals. Palladium is currently running about $200 per ounce. ~~~ The behavior of hydrogen in metallic matrices is a useful study topic in it's own right (deturium or otherwise): this is the behavior that makes NiMh batteries. Iron in particular is an active catalyst when mixed with hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, etc. Hydrogen makes most metals brittle over time, since it does percolate into the matrix and then start breaking crystal bonds in the lattice. Someone has got to demonstrate one of the following, preferably on a theoretical basis first: A) the infusion of Du into the palladium lattice can lead to a pressure or particle interaction regime that would trigger fusion, B) the infusion and electric charge of Du in the lattice creates a near-threshold condition that is sent over the top by an external particle, such as a cosmic ray, or C) decay events from unstable isotopes in the mix (either the Oxygen in the water, various isotopes of palladium, or impurities of other sorts) trigger a fusion avalanche. ~~~ We may be throwing a lot of money that could be better spent elsewhere, but taxpayers might get something out of this that is an unexpected discovery having nothing to do with fusion. I hate to think of the other opportunities we're missing in the meantime.

at 4/21/2009 9:02:32 AM, guesswho said:
I'm a engineer and physicist. If one studies solid state physics you will find that there are many phenomenon within soilids (and liquids) that are not understood by modern physics. Just open up any recent issue of Nature for a variety of condensed matter phenomenon being investigated by science. I see this as one more phenomenon worthy of investigation across a whole host of phenomenon. They all need continued funding and support, because if you haven't looked around much, technology of the future will be based on our better understanding the small.

at 4/21/2009 1:07:23 PM, DGDanforth said:
Coulomb repulsion must be overcome to allow deuterium atoms to approach a fusion distance of about 1 Fermi. Is there any mechanism that could provide such energies? Yes, linear accelerators. If a crystal oscillates in a wave like manner along a channel between atoms then a charge separation can occur. That oscillating charge separation can accelerate deuterium atoms along the channel. So what would be needed would be coherent crystal oscillations, oppositely moving deuterium ions that are surfing on the waves traveling along the channels. The probability of this happening correctly is exceedingly small. But if the report of 25 times the input is the value of the output for LENR AND nuclear processes are about a million times greater than chemical then all one would need is a probability of 1 part in 40,000 to produce the reported results. This is conceivable but only just.

at 4/21/2009 1:10:50 PM, coldwarcodewarrior said:
I was at China Lake when the great first experiment was done. Our lab quickly like many others did experiments to check it out. Ours like the more expert labs failed. But many lessor labs especially in the South had success. So people like Dr Melvin Miles give it another look. It turns out that the poorer schools used smaller samples and a cheaper set up. When we at China Lake did the same thing we saw success. But for some strange reason there was such dislike from management that the funding ended for even looking at it. But Miles knew something was there so on the cheap he did an experiment you can find it on the net where we collected gases from various cells then used a random numbering so that another lab could detect the amounts of various Helium isotopes. The numbering was secret till the results where in. The high counts came from the cells that had been the most active. I really don''t know why things like this get no funding its real and why things like global warming get to much when its a fact that we are in a cooling phase the sun not CO2 is what drives the climate.

at 4/21/2009 1:12:28 PM, Hot Fusion Scientist said:
This is complex physics, not typically explored until the graduate level. Thus much gets lost when you simplify it for general discussion.

The original 1989 discussion was discredited in about 3 minutes. If what P-F claimed had actually occured, they would both be dead from the neutron flux. When people start reporting on cold fusion experiments that are killing their principal investigators, or more likely their grad students

at 4/21/2009 1:30:03 PM, Ravenor said:
Hot Fusion Scientist clearly has an ulterior motive for dismissing any LENR/cold fusion research out of hand, as a competitor for limited research dollars. The hot fusion research community has been hosing away billions of dollars over many years, with no tangible energy generation results. Just promises that if the US govt keeps up the funding, someday it''ll work.

at 4/21/2009 1:42:35 PM, goingwithguesswho said:
Werner Von Braun sez:
Be very careful with the word "Impossible". Interesting that 60 minutes missed/avoided the discussion regarding the production of neutrons. Fleischmann in essence tends to think that it''''s not fusion and possibly not a nuclear process, therefore something else is going on that bears researching. However, don''''t negate that the crystal inter-atomic forces aren''''t enough to cause fusion. Look at the interesting work going on in ferroelectrics

at 4/21/2009 1:47:09 PM, RD said:
I don''t think all research toward a questionable phenomenon should be stopped, but some skepticism is warranted toward this approach to energy producing fusion. The main investigator in this 60 minute article is just a little too zealous, and overconfident that we''ll all be sporting fusion run electric cars in a few years. We had a local researcher in our area some 20 years back who demonstrated a "nuc cell" battery touted to generate significant power directly from decaying isotopes. What was most interesting was his demonstration using an oscilloscope, which clearly showed a sinewave output from the battery! Cold fusion has a reputation that is hard to shake but the only way to truly rule out cold fusion is through valid research applied towards it.

at 4/21/2009 2:16:08 PM, Tom in Silicon Valley said:
The 60 Minutes report was interesting, but they never mentioned helium, which should be a byproduct of fusion. No helium, no fusion, right? Maybe that''s why the cold fusion researchers prefer to call it a "nuclear effect" instead of "fusion."

at 4/21/2009 2:39:49 PM, Dave said:
I have not been a believer of 60 Minutes research since they butchered Audi over 20 years ago. As a physicist I understand that peculiar things can happen at the atomic and subatomic scales. These effects do need researching even if they do not turn out to be what you initially believed was occurring. So despite 60 Minutes, I don''t think we should be overly dismissive of the claimed phenomenon. It will be interesting to look back on this discussion in another 20 years.

at 4/21/2009 2:45:09 PM, Steven said:
Rather than using the 60 Minutes report I suggest that people go directly to the source: www.lenr-canr.org

As far as I can tell, enough people have replicated the effect to indicate that it is real. What hasn''t been done is to put a creditable theory around it, make the energy output consistent, or show that it is scalable. These are all very large tasks, and someone needs to be willing to fund research consistently to determine if a reliable energy source is possible.

at 4/21/2009 2:55:17 PM, D-Glitch said:
The fundamentals of hot fusion are well understood: we can see and measure solar phenomena,
we have made hydrogen fusion bombs, we can observe nuclear fusion processes in particle accelerators. The NRL Plasma Formulary from the US Naval Research Laboratory gives you all the fusion science you will ever need.

The hot fusion community has two approaches: scaling down the bomb (laser fusion) and scaling down the sun magnetic fusion). They have made a lot of progress, but still have a way to go.

The Cold Fusion/Nuclear Effects crowd are still trying to understand their fundamentals.

D+D fusion (which you need if you claim 1 gallon of water is as good as 10 gallons of gasoline) generates most of its heat in the form of neutrons. They never seem to see them.

Putting different types of metals into solutions can make electrochemical batteries. Certainly you can get out more energy than you put in. But you aren''t getting fusion energy gains. You are getting a very expensive, poorly performing battery.

at 4/21/2009 3:00:08 PM, Mechanical Engineer said:
Do these experiments violate the laws of thermodynamics? For example, a heat pump would at first appear to violate the First Law, because you get more energy than you put in (in the form of electricity or shaft power). By doing work on the heat pump, we are able to transfer energy from a low temperature reservoir at some dead state temperature to a higher, more useful temperature (to heat a building, for example). How do we know the researchers aren''t observing a thermoelectric effect, since a thermoelectric refrigerator, functioning as a heat pump, also produces more heat output than the electrical energy input? I would like to see a Second Law analysis of these experiments.

at 4/21/2009 3:13:16 PM, JustAnotherCrackpot said:
I was interested when Dr. Fleischmann described being rushed by others to release preliminary findings. I believe he would have had it otherwise. It is difficult when the push for recognition gets in the way of thorough science, and yet, if we waited for all the T's to get crossed and I's to get dotted, the researcher would probably be dead.

What I would be looking for in analyzing experimental results and attributing the cause would be other products besides just heat. Other commenters have said the same - looking for neutrons for instance. I would be interested in detecting the presence of helium. Even then the inference to root cause would be only that, an inference. More generally, it takes more than just an energy imbalance to attribute a result. I'm sure most researchers want to be thorough, but we must give them the leeway (also funding) to continue their work despite the excitement of preliminary results.

at 4/21/2009 3:18:01 PM, Steven J. Ackerman said:
P.T. Barnum was right !

at 4/21/2009 3:30:13 PM, John Burgeson said:
Don''t bet the farm on it.

Burgy (www.burgy.50megs.com)

at 4/21/2009 3:59:48 PM, John Rhodes said:
Until they detect gamma rays and/or neutrons, I remain skeptical.

at 4/21/2009 4:49:54 PM, Bob Hale in Arizona said:
It's very interesting to me that persons who are presmued to have electrochemical expertise appear not to have investigated or reported on palladium (Pd) interactions with hydrogen (and its isotopes) more fully. For example, one very good reference from 1937 is "Gases and Metals", by Colin J. Smithells. It is known that hydrogen has very large (hundreds of cc's per 100 grams of metal) solubility in Pd, which alters Pd's specific resistance and as well as its electrochemical properties. Deuterium has solubility which is similar in magnitude to hydrogen. Calorimetric issues caused by the gas dissociation and solubility may be confounding some measurements. Just a bit of "food for thought". Best, Bob.

at 4/21/2009 5:05:29 PM, JM said:
I haven''t seen the video, but it would be great if they could make a very long lasting battery out of the cold fusion reaction even if it put out only a fraction of a volt. Imagine the uses this could generate. With a series of these say "cold-fusion batteries" we could power computers and military cool/hot suits of even our cell phones.
Hot Fusion may work if they could pressurize the particles where the lasers were aimed at since stars and suns were created not only from heat, but from intense pressure as well.

at 4/21/2009 6:16:13 PM, Openmindedskeptic said:
At one time, 90% of the days "great minds" believed the earth was flat or the earth was the center of the universe, or this and that so numbers of opinions do not mean much. What would be relevant would be the ratio of the people who have actually performed the tests? The scientist interviewed is correct about the simplicity of the parameter reading process. One would have to intentionally screw up the data collection process to get a false 25 to 1 ratio. This would have been very apparent to the outside expert brought in to review the experiment. For him to go on record as verifying their testing methods is essentially validation. Further confidence would have been attained if 60 minutes had brought in 3 separate and unassociated experts to do the same job. 3 validations would have been near proof. Then the only remaining question is how to induce consistency. What triggers the catalyst?

at 4/21/2009 7:55:35 PM, Bauerml said:
I stopped watching 60 Minutes about 20 years ago, when they did a total hack job on a subject I knew fairly well (Chernobyl - basically calling it a USA cover-up).

The main mistake of Fleischman-Pons was they discounted all the energy it took to "charge up" the electro-chemical cell, and then claimed all the later energy released as "fusion". That and their neutron metrology was bad.

I suspect a similar issue for the latest Naval research lab breakthrough.

No, I do not get my science information from 60 Minutes, nor do I get my international information from Fox news.

at 4/21/2009 8:06:41 PM, Jed Rothwell said:
I have a collection of 1,200 papers on cold fusion, which I copied from the library at Los Alamos. I have 2,000 other papers from proceedings and from China Lake (Miles et al. as noted above), Los Alamos and national labs in the U.S., Italy, China and Japan. I have uploaded a bibliography of these papers and 500 full-text papers here: lenr-canr.org

People who are interested in this subject should read this literature carefully before reaching any conclusions.

at 4/21/2009 8:56:40 PM, Jed Rothwell said:
Openmindedskeptic wrote:
"For him to go on record as verifying their testing methods is essentially validation. Further confidence would have been attained if 60 minutes had brought in 3 separate and unassociated experts to do the same job. 3 validations would have been near proof." Please note that EPRI and DARPA have sent dozens of experts to examine the experiments at SRI, Energetics Tech. and elsewhere. These agencies are paying millions of dollars for this research

at 4/21/2009 9:02:21 PM, Jed Rothwell said:
[message was cut off . . .] These agencies are paying millions of dollars for this research. They do not spend that kind of money without outside verification. For example, they sent Richard Garwin and several others to visit SRI in 1993. On 60 Minutes Garwin claimed there might be a problem with the input power measurement, but he told DARPA: "We have found no specific experimental artifact responsible for the finding of excess heat . . ." In other words, he does not know any specific reason to doubt the power measurements. Unless he can cite a specific reason his claim cannot be tested or falsified and therefore it is not a valid scientific assertion. His claim is also wrong because in many experiments there is no input power, only output heat. (Garwin knows this as well as I do.) Garwin''s SRI report and hundreds of other papers can be found at LENR-CANR.org, as I mentioned.

at 4/21/2009 10:44:50 PM, Richard Hartung said:
I understand why Fleischman wished he had never called the phenomenon "cold fusion". Too many intelligent(?) people are wrapped around that axle. If the results don't fit expectations for a fusion process, then it probably isn't fusion causing the excess heat. Excess heat of the magnitudes reported can't be an error. Let's face the fact that there is an unknown phenomenon that needs to be researched and get on with it. Even if it's not 100% repeatable, a major objection, that simply means we don't understand all of the parameters involved. The existence of this phenomenon suggests there is a lot of physics we don't understand yet and that too hits the scientists with stature in their field. They can't stand the blow this might give to their professional egos. When you consider the tremendous need for a non polluting power source such attitudes are unconscionable.
Human beings are a strange lot!

at 4/22/2009 7:51:39 AM, jim said:
I am very pleased to see that the knee-jerk reactionists that buried Fleischman and Ponz so thoroughly years ago might yet live to eat their words.

at 4/22/2009 9:18:38 AM, cmm said:
The word "believe" was used by 60 minutes many times. "Belief" has not a place in this discussion. Either the data is credible in that it motivates further work, or it is not-credible. This requires application of measurements, hypotheses, and experiments, not belief.

Science seeks to understand. Engineering seeks to use. Two feet on the same body, usually one is in front of the other.

It is important to name things correctly. The observation is "excess heat". One hypotheses is "fusion". Another is "bad experimental technique". I have no visibility into the other hypotheses, but were I an investigator studying the observation, I''d surely be constructing some (to me) plausible hypotheses and testing them.

Keeping score, I read it as: Classical Fusion (even cold) -- probably not. Bad experimental technique -- probably not. Unknown source of heat -- yes, but why?

Here begins the hard work -- the thousands of minor experimental changes to explore the range of variables -- countless insights, many wrong, suggesting fresh hypotheses -- gradual understanding -- engineering success, repeatably demonstrating excess energy -- theoretical framework, correcting critical engineering misunderstandings -- proliferation of the theory through the practitioners -- perhaps leading to a practical exploitation of the effect.

In a magical-thinking way, I hope the excess energy turns out to be useful. In a practical-thinking way, I won''t stop using CF bulbs.

at 4/22/2009 12:54:12 PM, Joe said:
I repeatedly measured excess heat in calorimeter experments while developing an electrochemical heat source for divers back in 1972. When simulated seawater was used we measured the theoretical heat from the electrochemical reaction. When we used real seawater we measured at least 10% greater available heat. Electro-chemists and physical-chemists never really gave a meaningful explaination for the difference in heat that was liberated. The short circuited electrochemical electrodes were simply magnesium and steel. I expect a flowing seawater cell would produce an abundance of excess (greater than theoretical)heat.

at 4/22/2009 8:16:56 PM, I think for my self said:
JustAnotherCrackpot said: "I would be interested in detecting the presence of helium"
Tom in Silicon Valley said:"No helium, no fusion, right?"
Go look at
lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMcorrelatioa.pdf

and or the DOE review was cashed here
www.profusionenergy.com/A_Collection_of_information_on_Cold_Fusion/www_science_doe_gov/sub/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/Appendix_1.pdf

You should look at page 20

at 4/23/2009 1:08:29 AM, Jyri Poldre said:
I tend to believe as many comments above that this effect is misunderstood rechargable battery. This is why it works unpredictably - you have to charge it to get it working.
Maybe some of these experiments lead to a battery that can be charged with hot fusion then later used to extract energy at controlled rate. I would non mind having ZPM at my disposal :-)

at 4/23/2009 5:58:14 AM, Marty said:
Most people have heard of conservation of matter and energy, or conservation of momentum. These and other principles like conservation of charge and spin underlie the highly successful predictions of the standard model. Subtle modifications to the model may be expected, but D-D fusion without detectable neutrons is so far from what already works that it should be treated right along claims of perpetual motion. And calling it a nuclear event instead of fusion is as pathetic as calling Guantanamo detainees "enemy combatants" so they can be denied basic human rights. Shame on 60 Minutes for creating false hope instead of debunking this huge distraction.

at 5/22/2009 10:43:53 PM, John said:
Dr Lister was made out to be a fool for sterilizing. And look how long it took to believe the Dr with the cure for ulcers. We think we are so smart but years from now we will be looked at like we look at people 100 years in the past.
I know someone that did something the books say cannot be done. Good thing he did not read the book/ the book.
This also brings to mind the Levitron toy top it was said it could not be done.

at 6/23/2009 3:21:37 PM, abdlomax said:
I've been researching cold fusion for about five months now, having been, like nearly everyone who was aware, convinced by 1990 that cold fusion was a bust. The CBS special only scratched the surface, and many comments here make unwarranted assumptions. To keep it brief:
1. Helium found (see the report above about Miles, but several careful confirmations). No excess heat, no helium. Excess heat, helium at 25+/-5 MeV/He-4.
2. Alpha radiation. Copious. Confirmed. Wasn't seen at first because nobody was looking for it, and hard to measure because of low penetration.
3. Reliable, 100% replication with several techniques, such as co-deposition or gas-loading of nanoparticle palladium.
4. Theories. Several. My favorite: Takahashi did the math: if a Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate forms (four deuterons in a tetrahedral pattern, probably at the surface from two deuterium molecules confined by the lattice), quantum field theory predicts 100% fusion within a femtosecond or so. Be-8 is formed, which decays immediately into two alpha particles at 23.8 MeV each. No neutrons.
5. Neutrons. From *secondary reactions.* Only a few, but ten times background. Published in major multidisciplinary journal, Naturwissenschaften, January 2009. Search for Mosier-Boss, "triple tracks." Hosted at newenergytimes.com.

at 7/3/2009 2:06:30 PM, ScienceLiterate said:
A few individuals who posted above have really done their homework and understand nuclear science. However, since nuclear science illiteracy is an issue facing our nation(like general science illiteracy), the fact this field is ignored is no real surprise to me (it might actually be a blessing)

Garwin did say two different things, a historical fact if you look at past and current comments he made, but then so have others I might ad !!

Conclusion: All are human beings perfect? No.

He4 - proven(several papers based on experimental evidence demonstrate this). Are there broad low energy nuclear effects being seen? Yep. You'd have to blind not to draw such conclusions. The excess heat issue is a separate issue as far as demonstrating a valid nuclear effect(mainly for commercial potential). Remember, even peer reviewed journals announcing a major breakthroughs often times announce a new small effect in condensed matter science. So in weighing all the evidence in papers on LENR.org, do these not constitute an 'open source' peer review much like the PLOS does?

I would even like to state that gammas have been seen in some device reports(enough said)

Can it be commercialized? - open for discussion !!

Should this all this be posted in Wired's 'Danger Room' ? Hmm ..there a thought.

Do we have another twenty years to argue over minutae, or do we all quickly get to REAL work trying to commercialize its potential?

Brian's Brain

Profile

RSS Feed

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Most Commented On

Archives