"We have compelling evidence that fusion reactions are occurring" at room temperature, said Pamela Mosier-Boss, a scientist with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (San Diego). The results are "the first scientific report of highly energetic neutrons from low-energy nuclear reactions," she added.
Cold fusion was first reported in 1989 by researchers Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, then with the University of Utah, prompting a global effort to develop the technology. Normal fusion reactions, where hydrogen is fused into helium, occur at millions of degrees inside the Sun. If room temperature fusion reactions could be realized commercially, as Fleishchmann and Pons claimed to have achieved inside an electrolytic cell, it promised to produce abundant nuclear energy from deuterium--heavy hydrogen--extracted from seawater.
Other scientists were unable to duplicate the 1989 results, thereby discrediting the work.
The theoretical underpinnings of cold fusion have yet to be adequately explained. The hypothesis is that when electrolysis is performed on deuteron, molecules are fused into helium, releasing a high-energy neutron.
While excess heat has been detected by researchers, no group had yet been able to detect the missing neutrons.
Now, the Naval researchers claim that the problem was instrumentation, which was not up to the task of detecting such small numbers of neutrons.
To sense such small quantities, Mosier-Boss used a special plastic detector called CR-39.
Using co-deposition with nickel and gold wire electrodes, which were inserted into a mixture of palladium chloride and deutrium, the detector was able to capture and track the high-energy neutrons.
Silvered Dewar calorimeter used by Navy researchers to detect neutron emissions from a cold fusion process.
The plastic detector captured a pattern of tiny clusters of adjacent pits, called triple tracks, which the researchers claim is evidence of the telltale neutrons.
Other presenters at the conference also presented evidence supporting cold fusion, including Antonella De Ninno, a scientist with New Technologies Energy and Environment (Rome), who reported both excess heat and helium gas.
"We now have very convincing experimental evidence," De Ninno claimed.
Tadahiko Mizuno of Japan's Hokkaido University also reported excess heat generation and gamma-ray emissions.
All three research groups are currently exploring both experimental and theoretical studies in hopes of better understanding the cold fusion process well enough to commercialize it.
Research funding was provided by the Department of the Navy and JWK International Corp. (Annandale, Va.).
April 1st, 2009, 11:06
Malsua
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
There have been unexplainable experiments all along that showed unreproducible results indicating cold fusion. My opinion is/was that it's just a matter if getting all the variables right.
It seems someone has.
April 1st, 2009, 13:34
American Patriot
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
My opinion is that it's a load of nonsense.
FUSION can occur under extreme conditions - that is hydrogen atoms becoming helium under the extreme pressure that occurs in a star.
There are some idea that it can occur with the right conditions such as "light pressure" (which is why the NIF was built at Livermore - a place I've visited before).
In essence a lot of laser light aimed at a spot of material (deuterium) and hit in force could cause the process to occur, but sustaining the process isn't going to be possible without pumping a lot more energy into the process.
I think that the laser idea has the best chance - but it won't happen on the planet rather in space. Even the scientists I spoke to several years ago about this agreed that gravity might have a detrimental effect on the process. The head of the program told me he'd make sure I got 'credit' for the gravity theory :)
However... "cold fusion" is probably nothing more than a myth at this point.
By the way these tracks they are talking about could be caused by chemical reactions rather than a nuclear reaction.
April 1st, 2009, 13:55
American Patriot
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
Quote:
The theoretical underpinnings of cold fusion have yet to be adequately explained. The hypothesis is that when electrolysis is performed on deuteron, molecules are fused into helium, releasing a high-energy neutron.
Let me help....
Electrolysis is a CHEMICAL reaction.
Fusion is a NUCLEAR reaction.
They are completely, totally separate things, related only on a cursory level.
A chemical reaction releases energy too, most of the time and occurs during the combination of elements at the valence electron shell level. Electrons can EASILY be pulled off of certain atoms giving you static charges for instance. in chemical reactions these outer valence electrons are shared by two more more atoms of two or more elements thus making compounds.
(For our discussion here, a compound is simply two or more elements combines to form this compound from a characteristic electrical charge. An element is the simplest form of a basic material and contains only one or a few atoms that are identical. Hydrogen has 1 electron and 1 proton. Normally hydrogen is 'stable' with two cnnected atoms, and is called H2).
Deuterium is a hydrogen atom of 1e, 1P and 1N and is called an isotope.
Here's where things get a little... 'sticky' if you pardon the pun.
Chemical reactions are ALWAYS concerned with ELECTRONS.
When you start trying to separate the nucleus of atoms you are attempting to cause fission, of the division of the nucleus. In physics we have something called "The Weak Force" and the "Strong Force".
(There are two other forces as well, one is gravitational and the other electromagnetic)
Essentially "strong force" is what holds together the atomic structure of the nucleus. This force is based on distance. It is VERY strong at close range and gets much weaker as distances go further. So if you CAN separate a neutron from an atom it won't be attracted back to that atom most likely ever. But separating it in the FIRST PLACE is nearly impossible.
It it even more difficult to get two atoms of one element to combine to form a complete new type of element. This is called FUSION.
Forcing two deuterium atoms together - each containing 1e, 1P and 1N into Helium (helium contains 2e, 2P and 2N) requires a method to force - and I do mean FORCE the two nuclei together.
What most people fail to grasp is the 'size' and 'distance' scale of atoms. Also the other forces like electrostatic repulsion effects are something not taken into account.
Basically the REASON that the sun shines and there is a massive thermonuclear (fusion) reaction going on is due mainly to gravity.
LOTS of mass, causing lots of gravity which in turn FORCES the atoms to compress and compact until a point of no-return is reached and the friction, heat and energy given off from this massive gravity cause the ignition of the star.
In this case the heat, and pressure FORCE the atoms to compress and recombine, giving off heat, light and other forms of energy - which then becomes a self-sustaining fusion reaction.
For this to occur on a SMALL scale would simple require a vast amount of energy to get it going (which is why I believe the laser idea is the best one).
Chemical reactions simply can not, and will not create, or sustain a nuclear reaction.
It is simply madness to believe it will with what we know.
April 1st, 2009, 15:06
Toad
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Donaldson
Electrolysis is a CHEMICAL reaction.
Fusion is a NUCLEAR reaction.....
That's exactly the issue I see. People getting heat, and failing to see it's simply chemical in nature, rather than nuclear. And I really question if fusion could ever happen at standard "room" temp in the first place. otherwise, why don't we see any evidence of it occuring spontaniously under rare circumstances in nature?
When I see a cold fusion that is consistantly repeatable by independent parties and verified as nuclear in nature, then I'll believe it. I just don't think "cold" is atomically possible. It's a modern day version of alchemy's lead to gold.
April 1st, 2009, 15:52
American Patriot
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
Quote:
Originally Posted by Toad
That's exactly the issue I see. People getting heat, and failing to see it's simply chemical in nature, rather than nuclear. And I really question if fusion could ever happen at standard "room" temp in the first place. otherwise, why don't we see any evidence of it occuring spontaniously under rare circumstances in nature?
When I see a cold fusion that is consistantly repeatable by independent parties and verified as nuclear in nature, then I'll believe it. I just don't think "cold" is atomically possible. It's a modern day version of alchemy's lead to gold.
I think what the article was trying to say was that since deuterium occurs in nature it is POSSIBLE that they can force fusion "naturally"... in a round about way of saying it anyway.
No matter what they say, fusion is NOT a chemical reaction, and no matter how many times they say it this won't be a true thing. Can't happen without something very, very drastic occurring to force two atomic structures together into one.
Compression is one way it can be done. Compression through the use of light energy is possible and highly probably the only way it CAN occur. However, this isn't "cold".
Cold fusion is by definition a hypothetical form of nuclear fusion occurring without the use of extreme temperature or pressure.
Unfortunately, if this occurs in nature it will not occur in any sort of great quantities (I mean, how DID deuterium come to exist? By a natural process of SOME sort, thus they are postulating it occurred without heat or pressure obviously) and secondly if it does occur in nature, then why isn't there a vast amount MORE deuterium available in water?
Obviously this is a point of view, and I'm not knocking the point of view. I'm knocking the theory because - simply put we know fusion CAN occur under the right circumstances. Changing those circumstances does NOT allow fusion to occur.
What makes anyone think it is possible to ignore the circumstances and rules under which physics works in the natural world and "guess" it MIGHT work?
Logic and reason are usually thrown out in science by laymen - because, simply put, they want to "believe".
This is one of the main reasons I became so interested in science as a child and have followed the UFO phenomenon over the years. There are two distinct variations on a theme when it comes to "pie in the sky" stuff.
Be it "Free Energy" or "UFOs" or "Faces on Mars" there are two sets of people who overshadow everyone else.
The Believers and the Debunkers. Neither group has their feet firmly grounded in science and each side will make outlandish claims and try to show "proofs" based on false premises, lies and discrediting of the other side. Neither will lay a foundation of factual science.
When it comes right down to a battle between the two sides both will thrown out phrases like "We don't really know enough about science" or "Science is just made up" or "Science is more like religion than religion itself".
And neither of the two sides understands they are using the same argument and poor deductive reasoning.
April 1st, 2009, 16:01
American Patriot
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
Here's a good article at answers.com that isn't too technical and over the wall for most people.
cold fusion or low-temperature fusion, nuclear fusion of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, at or relatively near room temperature. Fusion, the reaction involved in the release of the destructive energy of a hydrogen bomb, requires extremely high temperatures, and investigations of fusion as a possible energy source have focused on the problems involved in designing an apparatus to contain and sustain such a reaction (see nuclear energy; nuclear reactor). In 1989 B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, chemists at the Univ. of Utah, announced that an experiment conducted at room temperature using platinum and palladium electrodes immersed in heavy water (deuterium oxide) had produced excess heat and other byproducts that they ascribed to a fusion reaction. Attempts to replicate their experiment produced initially conflicting results, but several early announcements of experimental confirmation were later retracted. Pons and Fleischmann were also later criticized for having skewed data to show the emission of gamma rays at an energy level typical of fusion.
Quote:
Bibliography
See F. David Peat, Cold Fusion: The Making of a Scientific Controversy (1989); F. E. Close, Too Hot to Handle: The Race for Cold Fusion (1991); J. R. Huizenga, Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century (1993); G. Taubes, Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993).
April 1st, 2009, 16:07
Malsua
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
Have you guys seen the presentation that Dr Robert Bussard gave a few years back on Fusion and his Polywell reactor?
Yet another test of Andrea Rossi's Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat) has been performed on a 4.5 kW version near the University of Bologna. This time a new set of observers were present, one of which is the chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, who confirmed that Copper is being formed from Hydrogen and Nickel -- cold fusion!
The evidence in support of Andrea Rossi's "cold fusion" or "LENR" (low energy nuclear reaction) based Energy Catalyzer continues to grow. For those who are not aware, his system combines nickel powder, hydrogen gas, and an input of pressure and heat to produce a large output of thermal energy. On March 29th, 2011 yet another test of the technology was performed at the University of Bologna. Like previous tests, the outcome was a complete success. However, this time a smaller version of the E-Cat was tested and two new observers were present.
Some well known players were present during the test. These include Andrea Rossi (the inventor of the E-Cat), Professor Sergio Focardi, Dr. David Bianchini, and of course Dr. Giuseppe Levi. Two guest observers were also present. One of the guest observers was Hanno Essen, associate professor of theoretical physics at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology. He is also the chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society. The other guest observer was Professor Sven Kullander of Uppsala University. He is also chairman of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Energy Committee.
Smaller System with Great Results
The test was performed on a much smaller version of the E-Cat. The previous version of the E-Cat had a reactor volume of about one liter. This system has a reactor volume of only one twentieth of a liter. Four E-Cat systems were present, but only one was tested. The remaining units had their shielding and insulation removed. This allowed for their construction to be seen.
This new model of E-Cat consists of a stainless steel reactor vessel which is placed inside of a copper pipe. Water flows between the copper pipe and the steel reactor vessel. There are inlets for both water and hydrogen gas. The reactor is activated by current flowing through a resistor which is wrapped around the outside of the copper pipe. When a certain temperature is reached the reaction begins. The setup is truly simple. It reminds me of old pipework from many years ago.
Kullander and Essen were given permission to examine the setup, check for hidden power supplies, fill the reactor with hydrogen, calibrate the volume of water flow, monitor the temperature of the water flow in and out of the system, and observe the entire experiment. The reactor contained 50 grams of nickel powder and .11 grams of hydrogen. In their report (pdf) they state, "We had free access to the heater electric supply, to the inlet water hose, to the outlet steam valve and water hose, and to the hydrogen gas feed pipe. The total weight of the device was estimated to be around 4 kg."
The result of the experiment was a constant average production of 4.69 kW of power for almost six hours. Additionally, the input was on average 330 watts (30 of which was used by the electronics controlling the setup). This is fifteen times less than the energy produced by the device (15x overunity).
This output was less than the 10 to 15 kW produced by the previous version of the E-Cat, but this is very impressive for a device 1/20th the volume!
Kullander and Essen also ruled out that the energy could be coming from a chemical source. They stated, "Any chemical process for producing 25 kWh from any fuel in a 50 cm3 container can be ruled out. The only alternative explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives rise to the measured energy production." This statement is VERY significant coming from a report written not only by professional scientists, but also by the chairman of a skeptical society!
Yet again, it seems the existence of cold fusion or LENR in the form of Andrea Rossi's Energy Catalyzer has been vindicated. However, there is more news to report.
Transmutations
It is well known to those who have been following the saga of Andrea Rossi's technology that one byproduct of the system is copper. Apparently, it is the result of the fusion reaction between nickel and hydrogen. Until now, we had to take Andrea Rossi's word for that, but the results of additional testing has confirmed his claims.
A sample of fresh nickel powder and a sample of nickel powder that had been in an active E-Cat for two and a half months was given to Kullander and Essen. Elemental and isotopic analysis was performed on the samples utilizing both X-ray Fluorescence and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. The result was that the fresh nickel powder was almost totally pure nickel, but the nickel powder that had been in an E-Cat contained 10% copper and 11% iron. Two of the copper isotopes detected were Cu63 and Cu65. Kullander has stated this is proof of nuclear reactions taking place in the reactor.
Mr. Park, are you ready to start apologizing for your many years of claiming cold fusion is simply pseudo-science, voodoo science, and snake oil? You better crawl back into the hole you came out of, because a lot of folks are going to be demanding apologies soon!
(Go ahead and continue faking your, "cold fusion amnesia." We realize you have been avoiding talking about the topic over the past few months!)
Dumbstream Media Still Not Paying Attention
After multiple successful tests of the E-Cat by third parties, and now proof of nuclear reactions, it is frustrating (but predictable) that the mainstream media is not paying hardly any attention to this technology. The E-Cat represents a way to eliminate our need for fossil fuels and an alternative to conventional nuclear power. However, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and many other news networks act as if nothing is happening.
This is more proof that the mainstream media is dead, totally owned and controlled by the corrupt powers that be. If you want up to date news and information the alternative media is now the best source. At some point, awareness of this technology will reach a critical mass, and the so called mainstream media will be forced to cover it. Probably, there will be multi-hour long televised specials about the technology. The truth, of course, will be that they will not deserve the ratings they get. They ignored this technology for many months and it would serve them right if no one tuned in! I hope Andrea Rossi does not give a single major network in the United States an interview. My personal hope is that he chooses to give frequent interviews on Coast to Coast AM, and other media outlets that have frequently favorably discussed cold fusion over the years.
Energy Revolution Coming Soon
This is further evidence that an energy revolution is coming. As the year long research program on the E-Cat technology continues at the University of Bologna, more evidence is bound to be released. Perhaps soon after the one megawatt power plant and 300,000 unit a year manufacturing plant in Xanthi, Greece opens, a factory can start up in Japan. They could sure use a source of jobs and a new source of energy to replace their destroyed conventional nuclear power industry.
The only real mystery at this point is the catalyst(s) used in the reaction. This is the key to producing practical levels of output from nickel-hydrogen fusion systems.
# # #
This story is also published at BeforeItsNews. Links:
I spend much of my time debunking the free energy fantasies of my less technically competent friends. Wishful thinking makes many believe that cars can run on water after seeing a brief youtube video. Lately, however, I have been undergoing an exciting paradigm shift.
Remember the “cold fusion” fiasco of 1989? Well, I have come to realize that it wasn’t what it seemed at all. Denial, groupthink, dirty tricks and easily manipulated media combined to create an historical injustice. Two decades have been wasted virtually ignoring this game-changing discovery. Today’s environmental disasters, expensive energy and oil wars could possibly have been avoided. I’ll say more in a moment about what really happened in 1989, but first, let me tell you what got me started reexamining what I thought I knew about cold fusion.
You probably think that 4700 watts of clean, radiation-free power from a three cubic inch reactor sounds like yet another impossible hoax. But this was a third iteration demo, designed to satisfy skeptics of two previous demonstration at the prestigious University of Bologna. Attending the third demo were two Swedish scientists. One was chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society and the other was chairman of the Energy Committee of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science. They were both allowed to freely examine the entire setup except for the contents of the tiny, 50cc reactor chamber.
Their written report ended with: “Any chemical process for producing 25 kWh from any fuel in a 50 cm3 container can be ruled out. The only alternative explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives rise to the measured energy production.” They also noted that you would have to burn 3 liters of oil to produce 25 kWh. There has since been another confirmation.
The inventor, Adrian Rossi, is very accessible on his blog and has said that more than one hundred of his 4.4 kW reactors are running in four countries.
He plans to ship a larger unit in October that produces one MW of hot water. It consists of hundreds of the small reactors in series/parallel mounted in one 2 X 3 X 3 meter box. It weighs two tons. The proprietary nanopowdered nickel fuel will be replenished every six months. Everything has been financed using Rossi’s own money and the customer will pay only when satisfied.
Rossi is an inventor and businessman who decades ago noticed excess heat effects while working with a nickel catalyst to synthesize fuel from hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Using Edison-like experimental techniques, he soon learned to control the heat production. He even kept his factory heated for two years with a prototype reactor. More than two thousand prototypes were built and destroyed in refining the design and learning how to control and scale up the reaction.
Researching the science literature, Rossi soon found Dr Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna, who had regularly published work on nickel-hydrogen reactors since 1994. Using his own money, Rossi contracted with Dr. Focardi and the university to help him understand and develop the technology as a product. By January 14, 2011 they were ready for a public demonstration of a 10 kilowatt desktop reactor.
The press reaction was muted in Europe and nonexistent in the U.S. Skeptics accused him of hiding a battery inside the reactor so another, longer, demonstration was held, using calorimetry that heated but didn’t boil water to answer other critics. The 18 hour demonstration produced 18 kilowatts average over the entire 18 hours. The U.S. press was still silent and skeptics were still suspicious so two more demos were held.
Still, the silence from the U.S. media was deafening. Rossi announced that there will be no more demonstrations until October 2011, when the million watt heating plant will be shipped to a customer in Greece. If he succeeds, be prepared for a repeat of the Sputnik shock of 1957 when the US woke up to find that they had fallen way behind in science.
Nickel is plentiful and cheap and so is hydrogen in the tiny amounts used.
Nickel is so plentiful that energy becomes virtually free. Rossi’s reactor is very simple in principle. Powdered nickel and a catalyst are simply heated to about six hundred degrees centigrade in a stainless steel chamber filled with pressurized hydrogen. At a certain point, the gradual heating starts accelerating due to nuclear reactions in the metal lattice. The heating resistor is backed off to keep the reaction going at a steady state, with about 15 times more heat output than input. Much higher ratios are possible but can be unstable and dangerous. This is why the 1-MW plant will be built using hundreds of smaller modules.
The reactor is enclosed in a lead shield because some radiation is, unpredictably, produced during operation. However, the spent fuel is not radioactive but contains copper that has transmuted from nickel in the nuclear reaction. The lack of dangerous radiation drives hot fusion experts crazy, but clearly there are things happening that are not covered by the equations used in hot fusion. Obviously, quantum mechanics needs to be rethought to include these reactions.
There are many proposed theories. Biological processes have been found to produce transmuted isotopes without radiation. Also, tritium sometimes comes out of volcanic vents from unknown reactions inside the earth. Clearly, the physicists have more to explain if they will just open their ears. Here is an equation they should study carefully:
Groupthink can make us totally irrational. The dot-com bubble and the housing bubble are examples of renowned experts becoming completely blind to facts that are now obvious in hindsight. Making a lot of money tends to blind us poor humans to clear evidence that we are living in a fantasy world. The consequences can be terrible.
Nuclear physicists in 1989 were riding a bonanza of tens of billions in government research money for the development of hot fusion reactors.
After several decades of hard work, they were still far from achieving break-even, where output energy exceeds input energy. Just as the next round of appropriations was assured, Fleischmann and Pons came along with the announcement that they had already achieved excess heat output without government support and on an inexpensive desktop setup.
Denial was immediate. MIT and Caltech, who had been leaders in hot fusion work, immediately went to work “trying” to replicate the experiment. In just five weeks Caltech announced negative results. At a May 1st 1989 APS meeting in Baltimore, two thousand physicists gave a standing ovation to the Caltech team’s presentation. A lynch mob mentality, combined with denial, turned the exciting discovery of cold fusion into an enemy.
MIT helped set the tone by arranging a front page story in the Boston Herald on the day of the meeting with the headline, “MIT bombshell knocks fusion “breakthrough” cold.” The story was an interview with leaders of the MIT fusion lab that accused Fleischmann and Pons of fraud. The charge was later denied but tapes of the actual interview confirm what was said.
MIT further disgraced itself by altering data in its failure to replicate study.
This was discovered two years later by MIT employee Eugene Mallove, who found copies of the July 10 and July 13 drafts of the paper. The July 10th version had a graph that clearly showed excess heat. In the July 13 version the graph was redrawn to show no excess heat. The atmosphere at MIT, as shown by a “Wake for Cold Fusion” party (before the data was analyzed) and t-shirts and mugs offered by the plasma fusion lab, was hardly impartial.
To this day, denial reigns among most of the guilty parties of this travesty. The Department of Energy, Nature magazine, Scientific American, the American Physical Society, the U.S. Patent Office and many of the world’s top physicists still cling irrationally to the belief that cold fusion is junk science. Of course, this is how denial works: We protect our belief system by quietly stepping around the “elephant under the rug.” As long as a majority of our group backs us up, our view of reality remains grossly distorted to preserve the group-think consensus. Global warming deniers do this every day.
The Fleischmann-Pons announcement should have been the start of a new era of cheap, clean energy that would have saved us from the financial and environmental disasters and wars caused by fossil fuel energy. Instead, denial and dirty tricks caused us to waste 23 years and tens of billions of dollars on failed nuclear projects as though nothing had happened. The Presidents 2012 budget includes $2.5 billion for such projects. The first DEMO hot fusion plant is currently scheduled for 2033.
A surprising natural process was discovered in 1989 that can provide us with clean, essentially free energy. It clearly conflicts with the current consensus understanding of quantum mechanics that works nicely for hot fusion reactions. It seems reasonable to try to improve the theory to accommodate this new reality, but denial has instead tricked many good scientists to try to “shoot the messenger.”
The time has come to admit the mistake and get busy trying to improve our understanding so that we can perfect this amazing new technology. We have spent $20 billion and 55 years trying to reach break-even with hot fusion. Time to give cold fusion a chance.
There have been many painful scientific battles in the past over paradigm changes, but truth has a way of prevailing eventually. Cold fusion work has continued under the radar using the more accurate term “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions” (LENR.) Shunned by the establishment, supporters of LENR have created their own journals and meetings. Much progress has been made.
The reasons for the initial difficulty in replication of excess heat have been identified and the amount of excess heat has increased. By 1995 there were 21 published replications showing excess heat of up to 205 watts.
Strangely, the press lost interest after the initial media circus. The media’s face-saving denial has left most people with the impression that cold fusion is still dead. In 2009, 60 Minutes broke the silence and did an excellent update. But the rest of the media simply ignored it and focused instead on less risky reports on newsworthy items like rising gasoline prices.
Annual conferences have continued. A weeklong working demo of LENR was included at the tenth ICCF conference, which was held in 2003 at MIT. The power output was 2.3 times the power in. The most recent meeting was held in San Francisco in 2011 under the auspices of the American Chemical Society. The number of presenters at this meeting have quadrupled since 2007. The results this year were so enthusiastic that the American Institute of Physics refused to publish the 370 page proceedings. The cancellation of the publication contract was a last minute decision, clearly ordered by someone at a high level. This attempted blackout of a new technology will backfire in the long run as results get stronger and stronger.
By using nickel and ordinary hydrogen, several researchers have significantly increased energy output and reduced costs. In 1992, Thermacore, a U.S. military contractor ran a cell for nearly a year with a 50 Watt output and 3X excess energy. In 1996 Dr. Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna in Italy described an experiment using nickel & hydrogen that produced an average excess power output of 39 watts continuously for 278 days. There are a dozen competing theories to explain how nuclear reactions can produce so much energy without emitting dangerous radiation. Theories are helpful but not necessary. We still don’t really know how permanent magnets work, yet we use them every day.
Practical applications can be developed experimentally, just as Edison developed the light bulb.
Now that Rossi and Focardi have shown what can be done, expect to see a flurry of new announcements. New technologies tend to take forever to totally debug, so it won’t be surprising if the October delivery is delayed. There are several other companies such as Lattice Energy LLC, Blacklight Power, Brillouin Energy, and Energetics, who have announced product plans to the press and then gone silent.
Silence is not necessarily a bad sign, as the Bloom Box demonstrated. My bet is that we will have some amazing surprises within a year that will be a wake-up call, just as Russia’s Sputnik launch was in 1954. This moment could have come ten years ago if only we had listened to Fleishman and Pons in 1989.
Matteo, I'm curious about that whole turning waste into oil. I'm not sure what process he planned on using because there are people claiming they can basically do the same thing here in the states. They use a process called thermo-molecular-depolymerisation. They claim this method can turn anything, usually turkey guts for now, into oil and a few other products. I first read about this in Discover magazine, at least ten years ago. They have a plant down south and I think one out east(referring to the USA).
This is a video from the January press presentation of the Italian cold fusion thing. Maybe Peterle can provide some synopsis of it.
May 31st, 2011, 03:45
catfish
Re: Cold fusion experimentally confirmed
I was reading about cold fusion on Wikipedia trying to re-familiarize myself with it since it has been a while. I am pretty much with Rick on this one but always open to new possibilities. I found it interesting that the Patent Office no longer issues patents for cold fusion nor do they ever plan to. It appears that decision was reaffirmed in federal court, which doesn't happen very often apparently.