Investing In a Resource-Constrained World (Part V) 95 comments
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In a previous article I touched the topic of Peak Oil and even mentioned the Malthus Theory. The validity of both theories can not be disputed because both are extremely simple and perfectly logical derivatives of mathematics. In the case of Peak Oil, it's been validated by the peaking of individual giant oil fields, and we are just now experiencing the peaking of global oil supply. In the case of Malthus Theory, it has been validated by hundreds of historic events thoughout the human history.
The purpose of my articles is to talk about investments. But it is necessary to divert away a little bit to talk about the paradigm shift of our society first, before I come back to talk about investment ideas.
We are experiencing a gigantic paradigm shift as a crisis unfolds right in front of our eyes due to natural resource depletion. It is important for individual investors to understand what is this crisis and how do we cope in order to survive and prosper in the looming crisis.
Unlike most Peak Oil advocators who are extremely pessimistic, I am an optimist. I was pessimistic the first time I learned the Peak Oil concept. But the knowledge of the Malthus Theory actually turned me into an optimist. Humanity has faced many many crises before, each of which could have wiped out humanity from the surface of the earth, but we survived for millions of years nevertheless. So the looming resource crisis is no different and probably no worse than any of the previous crises humanity has faced.
Let me explain Malthusian in simple terms. A fish in the ocean, for example, can lay a few million eggs at a time. Each egg, given the proper opportunity, can grow into an adult fish and it can lay a few million eggs of its own. If you multiply a million by a million and keep multiplying, pretty soon you reach an astronomical number that total number of fish can easily fill the whole ocean, or fill up the whole galaxy. Of course that could never happen. Most eggs got eaten by other fish as food, before or after they are hatched.
A pessimist would think that what if all one million eggs are eaten and not even one survives to grow up? Then the fish could become extinct pretty fast. That does not happen either. It just so happens that out of 1,000,000 eggs, 999,999 will not survive but on average exactly one will survive to lay eggs, no more and no less. Nature has a way of regulating the fish population based on available natural resources like food and habitat.
The Malthus Catastrophe happens on a daily basis for fish. But I do not see any fish being pessimistic. They have been living happily for millions of years and just keep laying as many eggs as they can. Life goes on. Shouldn't human society, with our collective intelligence, cope with our own Malthus Catastrophe better than fish?
The unfolding energy and natural resource crises, in my opinion, is a population crisis. The global population simply exceeds what the earth's natural resources can support. If we have one billion people instead of six billion, then we still have plenty of oil and other natural resources left for everyone to consume. There are ways to cope with it, peaceful ways, through conscious population control (like the family planning policy in China), and conscious reduction of consumption.
We must abandon our American lifestyle of materialism. China, with a population five times that of the USA, and consumes only one third of the oil, and it manages a much more robust economy than the American one. So America should be able to survive with much less oil consumption.
The skyrocketing oil price has already forced many American families to try to adapt and cope with over $4 a gallon gasoline prices. Abandoning driving altogether is impossible for most Americans. But abandoning SUVs and big pickup trucks in favor of smaller, more fuel efficient cars is what people have been doing. The trend is very clear - sales of SUVs have stalled, but sales of cars are booming.
The total auto sales in recent month have dropped somewhat, only because auto makers have not been able to respond to the demand change fast enough. My opinion is auto sales actually will see a few years of hyper boom, because people will retire SUVs and other inefficient vehicles well before the useful lifespan of these vehicles. There will be a huge demand on new fuel efficient cars, to replace these SUVs on early retirement.
My advise to people is SELL your SUVs now while you can still fetch a decent price for them and use the proceeds to buy a new fuel efficient car. Wait longer and more of these oil guzzlers will show up to flood the used car market and dent the resale value.
You should also buy a Prius, the most fuel efficient car you can buy today. I do not own stocks of Toyota Motors (TM) and I do not think they make a terrible amount of money on Prius. But I am getting 66.6 miles per gallon so I can afford a much higher gasoline price than most people do. Toyota cannot produce a lot of Priuses due to a battery shortage. It costs a lot of nickel metal to produce the hybrid batteries. So buy a Prius while you can still lay your hands on one.
I can see there will be continued global nickel shortage due to automakers rapidly ramping up hybrid vehicle production, but also due to ramped up effort to develop deep sea oil resources. You need gigantic oil platforms, called oil rigs, made of millions of tons of stainless steel, which needs nickel. There is a global shortage of oil rigs, so expect stainless steel and nickel demands to ramp up just on this account. Check out the phenomenal rise of Transocean (RIG) and you know there is a severe rig shortage. Buy any producer of nickel while it is now cheap thanks to the recent nickel price correction, which now seems to have bottomed.
That of course includes my favorite palladium stock, North American Palladium (PAL), because nickel is the most important byproduct of PAL. I am also thinking about Taseko Mines (TGB), which I once owned in 2006. I still like its low P/E ratio. Was its recent fall due to nickel? If then, it's good reason to buy on the dip, since I see nickel has bottomed in the current round of correction, especially in light of the big blow up in west Australia.
The solar sector has been hot in recent months but has cooled down somewhat. Do I consider any solar stocks a good buy here? I have longed and shorted Trina Solar (TSL) and LDK Solar (LDK) in the past but I considered them merely trade stocks and I no longer own them. My opinion is Solar PV is NOT the solution of our energy crisis, not silicon based ones, and definitely not the CdTe solar panels that First Solar (FSLR) produces.
I suggest that you read an article called Order of Magnitude Morality. The point to make is production of solar PV products are extremely energy intensive. Although it looks like the energy consumed in producing these solar panels will eventually be paid back, due to their long lifespan, it does take up to ten (10) years to payback the energy consumed, fifteen (15) years if you count in everything, including transportation, sales, installation and maintenance.
Massive ramp up of solar PV production will consume a great portion of our existing limited energy supply, making the energy shortage that much worse, before the energy contributed by these solar panels can start to make a difference.
Because of energy payback time as long as 15 years with everything counted, we could NEVER ramp up Solar PV fast enough to replace our energy supply. We don't have the time.
For example, let's say we immediately dedicate 5% of today's global energy supply to solar PV manufacturing, which is a stretch because the world can hardly afford even 1% of spare energy supply now. But let's say 5% is available. By the end of the year, we will have produced enough solar panel to provide 5%/15 = 0.33% of the world's energy needs, reducing our reliance on fossil fuel to 99.67%. The next year we can dedicate 5%+0.33% = 5.33% of the energy to solar PV industry. And by the year end we have another 0.355% available.
It would take 11 years for solar PV energy supply to reach 5% of the world's needs, and another 11 years to reach 15% of world's energy supply, and another 11 years to reach 35%. 33 years and we are still only at 35% of the world's energy needs.
I do not like any of the solar players in the market today. They all rely on government subsidies in order to prosper. I am a believer of free market and I am against all government intervention in the marketplace. Let the free market speak if it is something beneficial for the society.
Why should my tax dollars help to pay for 60% of the cost of solar installation for my neighbor 100 houses down the street? He may think he got a good deal from the tax break. But he will continue to pay tax to help the No. 99 neighbor to install solar panels, and then No. 98, 97, etc. At the end of day whatever tax break he initially enjoyed, he pays back in future taxes. The tax money doesn't come from no where but from our own pockets.
One exception is Energy Conversion Devices (ENER), which I mentioned before favorably, and still consider it a favorite long term play due to its hybrid battery technology and other unique technologies. I consider inventor Standford Ovishinsky the Thomas Edison of our time. The stock is very volatile so I would recommend to buy it on the dips, not on the rallies.
The solar sector is hyped up by Wall Street. If you have learned a lesson from the 2000 IT bubble, the lesson is don't follow the hypes!
That reminds me of another sector Wall Street hyped up two years ago, the ethanol sector. The most notable stock in this sector is Pacific Ethanol (PEIX). I noticed it in early 2006 and I told folks don't buy it at $40. You will lose your money. Turning food, corn, into the fuel ethanol, is never a very profitable idea. It is never a solution to the energy crisis. Don't listen to the hype, even if Bush himself hyped ethanol.
Today, unfortunately, PEIX trades at merely $3 a share. The ethanol price has gone up, but the corn price has gone up even more, making PEIX barely profitable. All of a sudden everyone now denounces the ethanol industry for consuming all the corn in the world, causing global food crisis and famine and all that.
I am a big believer of contrarian thinking. I did not buy James River Coal Company (JRCC) as I watched it rally to $16 in early 2007 when there were all the drum beatings. But I rushed in and bought tons of it at $4 when no one wanted to touch it. Today JRCC is well above $46 and there are lots of drum beatings again. My advice to people is sell JRCC now. I am not saying it is the top. Don't try to catch the top, which no one can do. There are much better opportunities elsewhere than to squeeze the last few dollars out of JRCC.
I am tempted to apply some contrarian thinking to PEIX at below $3 now that no one touches it. I do not view it as the savior of the world. My investment goal is not to save the world. The ethanol industry is not the solution to the world's energy crisis. But it has its reason to exist as a legitimate business, satisfying some legitimate needs. When we truly run into oil shortage, and we can turn corn into ethanol to supplement the gasoline supply, I don't see why not!
Burning food as fuel for transportation needs is nothing new. The First Emperor of China practiced exactly that 2222 years ago, i.e., burning food as bio fuel for transportation needs in order to bring supplies to his powerful army thousands of miles away. The transportation vehicles he used were driven by machines called horses, which consumed food as biofuel in order to obtain the energy to drive the carts. 90% of the food transported was consumed by the humans and horses on the trip, and only 10% reached the destination to supply the army.
If the trucks have no diesel fuel, no food can be delivered to your local stores. I would rather prefer to allow part of my food converted to bio fuel to allow the trucks to bring the rest of food to my grocery store. So maybe we should give it some thought if this is the right time to buy some PEIX or other ethanol players. Could PEIX develop an alternative feedstock than corn?
I have a big dream that the success of Cold Fusion, now called low temperature nuclear reactions, may become a reality and we will have solved humanity's energy crisis for good and saved civilization from catastrophic collapse.
I know that from the fundamental point of view of quantum mechanics, which says that particles always have a certain possibility to tunnel through energy barriers, cold fusion is NOT impossible. Think of all the hundreds of scientists who have resisted tremendous amount of peer pressure and continued the experimental research of cold fusion for 19 years. Do you think they are all clueless crackpots, or they are really up to something?
A recent successful public demo by Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan, should bring people renewed hope that cold fusion could become a reality and could be the perfect solution for our energy crisis. Of course if that is the case, the palladium price has got to go up a lot higher. Palladium is used to trigger cold fusion reactions.
I recommend people watch the video series War Against Cold Fusion to understand it. Instead of advocating for drilling the ANWR and depleting America's last bit of remaining oil as fast as possible, shouldn't America at least spend a few million dollars to check out the reality of cold fusion, when other countries like Russia, China, Japan, India and Israel already beat us in the cold fusion research? Shame on the short-sighted politicians who only know ANWR!
Metals are my favorites, base metals and precious metals. My all time favorite metal is tellurium, which I discovered when I studied the prospectus of FSLR. I talked about tellurium here and here.
On a side note, I can not believe how stupid the street is. I talked about FSLR's RoHS risk back on Nov. 27, 2007. It's been so long since my article was published and no one paid any attention. And now they suddenly discovered the toxicity of cadmium, and speculate that CdTe solar panels could be banned in Europe. I think it is irresponsible market manipulation. Any competent analyst should have read FSLR's prospectus from day one and know about cadmium and RoHS.
On this I want to come to FSLR's defense. The company has documented the RoHS risk in the prospectus and in annual filings so it has not hidden anything. A recent news fuss made it sounds like FSLR just made an announcement and that a EU ban on CdTe solar panel is suddenly imminent. I think it remains just as speculative today as last year whether Europe will take actions to ban CdTe solar panel or not. I so far have heard nothing that indicates a move to ban is imminent, so it remains just a speculation of a possible event so far.
Was it an attempt of the street to lure in some unsuspecting fresh shorts and then run another round of short squeeze? I remain skeptical because I know how this market could be rigged in either direction, with analysts often selectively distributing information they see fit.
The real risk of FSLR remains how it is going to resolve its tellurium supply. I talked about it quite a lot and I tried to dig out information. But the FSLR management does insist that it has adequate tellurium supply. Since the company has never revealed the actual data on its tellurium supply, we the outsiders can only speculate and discuss opinions. The fact remains it is something only FSLR knows, until such time it is willing to come to the public and discuss it. Maybe it needs more time for insiders to sell? One thing that I think I am sure is one day my stash of tellurium hoard might be worth its value in gold. I wish there was a tellurium mining stock to buy.
But really palladium and platinum are the next best thing. They are much better than gold and silver. I could never bring myself to like gold. I did once buy gold stocks like NovaGold (NG) and Northgate Minerals (NXG). Now NG is less than half where I last sold it at $16+. I now frankly think gold is the worst commodity investment and gold mining could be worse. Of course as fiat currency depreciates, gold's nominal value in fiat money looks higher. But you still have nothing to gain. Go to Zimbabwe. You can exchange a gold coin for one trillion Zimbabwe Dollars. You feel good being a trillionaire but you are not getting rich.
Gold has been money since ancient time and is still money today. I have a problem with that fact! Money, as an exchange media, must be something that people are willing to take in and equally willing to let go. If people want to hoard it but do not want to let it go, or people are rather happy to give it out and hate to take it in, then it can not be exchanged freely as a trade media. So by the virtue of gold being the money, it is something perceived to have near constant value in real term, people have a neutral sentiment in owning it or dishoarding it. and that is exactly the reality.
There are more than 160,000 tons of gold being hoarded by different people and organizations. Any trade of gold is largely between some hoarders of gold and some other hoarders of gold. The mining supply and jewelry industry demand, in this case, is relatively small in comparison, and does not have a material impact on gold's price. There could never be any shortage nor any surplus of gold. I would rather buy silver than gold on the Friedman Theory.
On silver have a look at Apex Silver Mines (SIL) and Coeur d'Alene Mines (CDE). Could be good bottom fishing target. Pan American Silver (PAAS) is now more expensive than silver itself. If you want leveraged gain on silver then buy some iShares Silver Trust (SLV). Similarly use US Oil Fund (USO) and US Natural Gas Fund (UNG) to play on the oil and natural gas commodity prices.
I would like to look at things from the point of view of the basic supply and demand relationship. If I want to invest in a commodity, I need to know that its price must go up. I need to know that it is in demand and that there is a supply shortage. I also need to know how elastic or inelastic that the price change may affect the supply and demand, and bring back the balance.
Something that is price elastic, that higher price could easily boost supply or cause people to reduce usage or seek alternatives, will have less room for price gain. On the other hand, if it is something price inelastic, that higher price will neither boost supply nor persuade industry users to stop using it. If there is simply no alternative or replacement, then it is a commodity that has a lot more room for price to appreciate.
Palladium and platinum fits such a description of commodity that is in short supply, that is in ever increasing demand that is rigid and non-negotiable. The supply is in shortage because of the ongoing electricity crisis in South Africa, which greatly impacts production in this main PGM metal supplier of the world. The electricity crisis sees no solution until at least 2012, according to ESKOM and other reports from South Africa.
The PGM production disruption is well documented for any one willing to dig out first hand information, instead of relying on second hand guesses. On page 9, table 3, you see the March, 2008 PGM production is down 28% from last March. SA supplies 85% of the world's platinum and 35% of palladium so that's a lot of global supply reduction.
Curiously, the trade of platinum and palladium so far has not followed the way the fundamentals of supply shortage dictates. Instead they follow gold and silver. Gold up and PGM up. Gold down and PGM down. What does PGM's own industry supply/demand have anything to do with gold or inflation hedge? I guess the metal traders are just slow in digging out useful information.
If it takes the street almost two years to dig out something well documented in FSLR's IPO prospectus, it doesn't surprise me at all that the reality of South Africa's electricity crisis hasn't even sunk in yet even in the minds of some of the most well known metals analysts, let alone the average investors. But soon the PGM fundamentals have to kick in. Industry users must buy for their consumption. The price movement will wake up investors.
I know one hedge fund manager, a physics graduate and very successful in his career, manages billion dollars of assets and claims to be a good friend of a briliant trader, Brian Hunter, whose one single mistake killed Amaranth Hedge Fund. I tried to talk to him about palladium and he told me right away he knew palladium, and there were lots of palladium mines in Canada, and he knew many funds who bought the physical metal. He totally believed he knew it but he really didn't.
If a bright guy with such a good background could be so clueless, the average Wall Street investors must be in total darkness, and of course the computers they use to trade are even more clueless about fundamentals of the markets.
So be patient, spend your time doing your own due diligence. Dig out first hand information and do your own analysis. If you have done so you have beaten the Street already. If you furthermore have the determination of sticking to fundamentals and won't be swayed by the mindless computer trading of the big funds, then you will win big time at the end of the day.
I am sticking to my investment in PAL and Stillwater Mining (SWC) since I have done my homework, and checked them many times and could not find anything wrong with my analysis. And I will patiently wait for the market to wake up to the reality I have discovered long ago. Meanwhile I am taking pride in my legacy as the first individual tellurium investor in the whole world. I made the correct call at the lows of JRCC and ENER, so I know I have the sharp vision. I am not envious about the recent astonishing rally of JRCC and ENER, because I know in time, PAL and SWC will do much better.
P.S. The author is heavily invested in the stocks of PAL and SWC. I have hoarded physical to speculate on tellurium price appreciation.
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This article has 95 comments:
Hydrocarbons are infinite: oilismastery.blogspot..../
Recently, I drilled a PVC pipe into my backyard and hit oil. I then pumped it out with my panasonic vacuum cleaner, then built a refinery from tinker toys.
I noticed my pool of oil depleted, then I waited 2 weeks and the pool was refilled. Yes. Yes.
The Earth's center is - in fact - comprised of a creamy nugget of crude oil. We're rich!!!
Cold Fusion as an area of research is barely a blip on the screen compared to Hot Fusion, and even Hot Fusion is discounted by thousands of physicists and engineers as being unworkable. Neither area has even left the lab, let alone shown anything close to break-even of energy input.
However photovoltaics DO work, and they do produce more energy than is necessary to manufacture and transport them. They're not common on houses yet, but they are common on sailboats and roadside hazard signs.
But that's not the whole story with photovoltaics. It doesn't take a condensed matter physicists to recognize that amorphic solar panels are essentially giant integrated circuits. It's silly to assume that the current state-of-the-art photovoltaic panel will not progress any further. To the contrary, I think of current photovoltaic panels the same way that I think of that old microprocessor in the Atari 400 computer I had when I was a kid. Back then, I couldn't dream how powerful computer chips would become, and that 4k memory card on my computer seemed pretty expansive. But last month, a friend sent an 8 Gb USB memory stick to me as a gift. Who could have imagined back in 1980 that so much memory would someday be squeezed into a devide the size of my pinkie?
That's where we are with photovoltaics, because unlike any other method of energy production before or since, photovoltatics are perfectly suited to take advantage of the economies of scale in chip manufacturing. We did it with computer chips and LCD screens, the next step to photovoltaic panels will yield equally impressive results. Future photovoltaic panels will be more efficient, cheaper, flexible, durable. They'll be built into common building materials like roofing panels, siding and windows.
You 'aint seen nothing yet.
Hyperbole? Are these the musings of an imaginative physicist? No. There is a reason why I'm bullish on photovoltaics, and that reason is nothing less than the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Photovoltaic panels are the first electrical energy production method in history to have ZERO phase loss. Think about it ... when you make electricity with a wind generator, you have to first convert mechanical energy to electricity. With nuclear you have to convert atomic energy to heat energy (steam) which is then converted to mechanical energy (turbine) which is then converted to electricity (dynamo). Ditto with coal, gas, geothermal, etc.. All of these forms of electricity production are inherently limited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics because they require several phase conversions to make our electricity.
But photovoltaics? The photon hits the panel, knocks an electron loose, which makes instant electricity. Zero phase loss. Of course, for the physicist, that's where the fun starts, because we want to find ways of lowering the work function of the material. We want to limit phonon loss, increase collector efficiency. Engineers want to find ways to make panels cheaper, chemists want to find ways to lower the cost of the thin film coatings and improve efficiency. Metallurgists want to improve substrates.
But the thing to remember here, is that photovoltaics are in their infancy. There is still relatively little research in the area compared to research programs in magnetic and electronic materials. When the number of scientists in the field quadruple, I suspect the efficiency of solar panels will double.
So, still think photovoltaics can't manufacture all of the electricity that the world needs? That's like looking at a six-year-old Wayne Gretzky and saying that he can't play in the NHL.
Finally, how much sun is available for solar photovoltaics?
The average daily solar radiation falling on 1 acre of land in the U.S. is equivalent in total energy to about 11 barrels of oil.
The U.S. currently uses about 100 quads of energy each year. (A quad is 10^15 BTUs.) How much solar energy is available for use in the U.S.? About 500,000 quads.
I can't tell you much about the future, but I am quite sure I know what will make our electricity in the future.
I suggest you follow the link embedded in my article to a web site called "Order of Magnitude Morality".
Photo PV will likely return more energy than they consume. But the energy payback time is too long. If we had started to ramp up Photo PV application since Carter's time it might have worked. But we no longer have the time.
It's like you have $100K savings in a bank account. If you let the interest grow for a long enough time, it may provide enough interest to sustain your life spending. But you can not wait and you have to spend money every day so the money is depleted before it can grow to big enough size.
Massive ramp up of photo PV will consume massive amount of energy in the first place, energy that we can not afford at this time.
Cold fusion is our last and real hope to solver the energy crisis. Anything else requires massive power down and reduction of scale of everything, including population, which is very painful.
Based on the historical development of the Thin Film Industry, fifty years should be enough time to bring photovoltaics up to speed. Until then, we continue to use existing energy sources, but look at them as twilight-sources, the same way that steam power was still used in the late 1800s and early 1900s until diesel could take hold.
I think you need to separate the worst-case-scenario from our ability to adapt. Worst-case-scenario ist that the price of energy skyrockets more than it already has. But if that happens, you need to remember that 50% of the energy we use in this country is simply spent on heating and cooling air. 'Wartime' rationing of power will get us through the rough spots until we can adapt our infrastructure.
Do we really need houses cooled to 72 degrees in the summer and warmed to 78 degrees in the winter? Do we really need to eat bread that has been made from grain shipped all over the country? Do we really need to commute 50 miles to a job that barely pays for things we don't need?
You reason that we can't afford the energy necessary to ramp up production of PV. But PV unlike cold fusion, PV is tested, we know that it works, and we already have invested a lot of energy into making that happen. Your argument is akin to the person who is running out of money and instead of working harder, they take their nest egg to the casino.
Okay, you like Cold Fusion. I think I'm a bit older than you though. I was in my General Physics class the day that Cold Fusion was announced. It was championed by the author of the physics textbook that we were using in class that day. You need to understand that the physics community did NOT label those Utah researchers as 'crackpots.' In fact, in my own department, we tried to replicate their results, as did physicists around the world. My current opinion on 'cold fusion' is that they are seeing some nonlinear effects from lattice features and phonon coupling at best, and experimental error at worst. And that is interesting as hell to a physicist, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we can plug our plasma televisions into the thing.
At some point in a physicist's career we have to make peace with reality, in much the same way that stock traders eventually learn that market conditions do influence the price of a stock, regardless of how interesting the company might be. So you claim that Cold Fusion is our last real hope to solve the energy crisis. But I don't have the luxury of flights of fancy, because I am expected to interpret what I see for people who don't necessarily understand the complexities of Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics and Statistical Physics.
Ideally, physicists are expected to contribute to the good of society. And my contribution is to use a lot of hard-gained knowledge to contribute to the direction of energy policy. And I can't throw out the Laws of Thermodynamics to put my faith in untested energy sources.
Maybe fusion (hot or cold) is our hope for the future. But so far, they are both nothing more than a hope. And hope doesn't power my laptop computer or turn my blender.
One area that I didn't know if you looked at in your research is the energy storage. Like computer chips and PV, capacitors can also take advantage of advances in thin-film manufacturing. Twenty years ago, a one farad capacitor would have been the size of a toaster oven, and it would have cost several thousand dollars. Today I can buy a one-farad capacitor that is the size of my thumbnail for about $2. Capacitors have a huge advantage over batteries in that energy is stored in its electronic state, rather than a chemical state. They have a long way to go to replace batteries, but I have no doubt that it will happen sooner rather than later.
One company that makes advanced capacitors is MXWL, although I don't currently own any of that stock.
I would be more than happy to discuss cold fusion with you, or any other form of exotic energy production. My mind is not closed to these, rather I am forced to be pragmatic.
One thing that you may not have known is that cold fusion was announced on the same day that the Exxon Valdez broke up in Alaska. While cold fusion conspiracists claim industry is trying to hide their results, I sometimes suspect the opposite ... that cold fusion was rushed to the public's attention as an emergency PR move, before it could be fully tested as a way of diverting attention away from the Valdez disaster which had happened just hours before the Cold Fusion announcement.
Cold or hot fusion might eventually save the smaller world but it is not likely to help with oil depletion, only fisson can contribute to that. Solar energy in the form of thin film should have low production costs but central solar farms that use concentrated light for heat and generation may be cheaper to build.
Mark W makes some good point but I will disagree on a minor point. If you have almost unlimited heat from fission then it doesn't matter too much that you go thru energy state changes like described. This just part of the efficiency equation. PVs are not very efficient so who cares that they produce power directly. They still must go thru a conversion process to make AC, this is around 95% to 97% efficient at best.
I'm all for PVs and they will contribute to distributed power, we will need all forms of generation. Two major kinks will be power storage (for non base load sources) and distribution system which are not keeping up.
Without population control, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Maybe China doesn't use as much as we do but they also live at a much lower standard.
I understand your point of the 'unlimited' heat from fission. You are correct.
But even with proper industry management and safeguards, fission is an untenable energy source. Nearly 50-year-old nuclear waste from the first fission reactors has still not been properly disposed of. There is no way (even with a Breeder reactor) of preventing rogue nations from using fission power to produce weapons. Even low-level alpha-particle waste can produce dirty-bombs capable of mass destruction.
Fission is both the most elegant, beautiful, yet paradoxically dirtiest, least practical energy source that has ever been invented, and no physicist can -- in good conscience -- recommend fission power given the dismal track record of the global nuclear power industry.
PV doesn't need to be used with alternating current, in fact the most efficient uses for PV are with local direct current networks. As for energy storage, Ithink capacitors will be the storage method of choice once we engineer ways to take advantage of their exponential charge and discharge characteristics, rather than try to work around this.
Also, you should disconnect from the idea of power distribution. Existing PV systems, if not used for air-conditioning and heating, have enough capacity to power an average home. If the home is built without adhering to the ideals of French Aristocracy (i.e. big heat-absorbing/emittin... boxes stuck on the ground) and instead are built into the ground and with passive solar heating and cooling, then there is no reason why people in the future will even need power distribution. Their energy needs can all be generated directly.
Of course this is probably not the case with industry, which tends to consume much more power.
As for population control, the world is not overpopulated. We have what looks like overpopulation since the distribution of the world's resources is so lopsided, with billions of people living on starvation diets, and a relative handful of people living far beyond what they need. In fact, from the perspective of space colonization, the Earth is UNDERpopulated, since we would need a global economy at least an order-of-magnitude large to support this.
Of course, I wouldn't necessarily want to live in space, but I suspect many people would prefer it to their current lives!
www.reuters.com/articl...
Palladium also shots up big time:
www.kitco.com/charts/l...
Both accounts are very bullish for PAL at this $5 price level. Remember PAL reported 16 cents per share earnings in Q1, 2008. Where can you find such cheap stock that looks forward to make more than a dollar earning this year and much more later on?
Also consider buying some SWC on the dip. There is no good reason for the dip except for there may be a trapped short with too big a short position in SWC, 8M shares worth. SWC produces 4000 ounces of rhodium each year. That alone is worth $38M.
Photovoltaics have been improving in efficiency and cost at a rapic clip for 20 years and the improvements continue.
And you do not mention solar thermal power plants which can already produce electricity at 8-12 cents a KWH.--competitive with gas and coal. They are so low tech we could have built them 100 years ago. It you can build a parabolic reflector or fresnel reflector and steam powered generators you can build solar thermal power plants.
In addition to that, anything we build uses energy to make. Where does the argument end?
What we need for the time being is plug in hybrid cars to cut down on gasoline usage. The average American driver would get 100 miles per gallon overall, doing almost all their commuting on battery power. They cost more to build, but even at $1.75 gasoline, the fuel savings would pay for the difference over the life of the car. At $4-5 gasoline you are saving wads of money. And they would cost less to make when economies of scale reduce their cost. You recharge the battery at night for $1 of electricity, during off peak demand. The grid can already handle that according to people in the power industry.
And the rationale that we shouldn't undertake what will eventually pay off(solar and wind), because it uses energy now, is just more shortsightedness. We've had enough of that to last a lifetie or two.
www.motherjones.com/ne...
Both SWC and PAL are the only primary palladium and platinum producers in North America, and only ones outside South Africa and Russia. So these two are extremely valuable.
On the other hand, Aluminum is a good long term buy, and Titanium is an excellent long-term buy, but for now, the latter requires knowledge of the intricacies of the Russian exchanges.
When you consider that, and the fact that they are noiseless, safe and can be incorporated into building materials, there is no other serious contender for the at-home power plant.
And that is the holy grail of the power industry, regardless of the power that the power distribution industry now holds. In the early 1960s, the U.S. Nuclear Industry projected twenty years before low-level nuclear waste would be able to be incorporated into home heat-exchangers as a power source.
For obvious reasons I'm glad that didn't work out, but I have no problem with living grid-free, even if it means giving up on some of the luxuries of power like A.C. and a clothing dryer. (My wife, on the other hand, might not share my enthusiasm.)
You are wrong on Aluminum, Nickel and PGM metals. Aluminum resource on earth is virtually unlimited, so aluminum production is just a matter of consuming electricity to refine the metal. Attracted by higher prices of aluminum, production will ramp up, bring in competition, and the higher cost of electricity will diminish profit margin. So aluminum producers are NOT good long term players.
What do you mean catalyst converters and hybrid batteries will "phase out"? They can't phase out, you can not sell a new vehicle without a catalyst converter that is up to the environmental standard, nor can you deliver a hybrid vehicle without the big battery pack. Catalyst converters reduced so much air pollution which indirectly saved so many lifes who would otherwise die from air pollution. My calculation says each half ounce PGM metals used in catalyst converters saves an average of one human life. As long as you burn oil, or even ethanol, in vehicles, you need to have catalyst converters.
Know why rhodium proce went from $300 to almost $10000 in just 4 years? Catalyst converter demand. You need just a little bit of rhodium for a particular characteristics that nothing else can replace, on top of platinum and palladium used. If auto makers have to choose between producing a vehicle that can be sold legally, or stop using rhodium, guess they have to pay to play no matter how high rhidium price goes up.
Higher gasoline price forces many people to rush to retire their oil guzzlers well ahead of their useful lifespan. But they still need to drive and so they need to buy fuel efficient small cars. So here you have a booming new car demand which boosts the PGM demand. Auto makers just couldn't respond to the paradigm change fast enough and did not switch enough production capacity to small cars. But they will switch and they will see auto sales boost once they do.
The big problem with solar industry is the long payback period of solar panels. If we had decades of lead time it would have worked out. But we lost that already. We no longer have time to ramp up the solar industry to make a significant difference in the structure of our energy supply.
There has been some discussion of cold fusion here. I don't have time to respond to your comments but you have made some technical errors. I suggest you review the scientific literature. Our website includes a bibliography of 3,000 papers and the full text of 500 or so. Please have a look:
lenr-canr.org/
Regarding the recent Arata experiment, I speak Japanese and I happened to be in Japan that day, so I attended the lecture. I uploaded a few details in the News section:
lenr-canr.org/News.htm
I know Arata's work pretty well. He and his co-authors have written 53 papers, and I have read several in English and Japanese. I have his paper for this experiment, which is:
Arata, Y. and Y. Zhang, The Establishment of Solid Nuclear Fusion Reactor. J. High Temp. Soc., 2008. 34(2): p. 85.
(In Japanese, with an English title and abstract.)
I am writing a report on it, which I will upload sometime in the next few days, maybe next week.
The experiment was not very well performed, but worth looking at. His previous results with with the DS Cathode were replicated by SRI and the Italian Nat. Nuc. Lab. This experiment is similar so it is probably working as well, but I will not be sure until someone replicate it with a better calorimeter and more material.
Regarding the future potential of cold fusion, here is an on-line book I wrote on that subject, which was recommend by Arthur C. Clarke and many distinguished scientists:
lenr-canr.org/BookBlur...
Enjoy! As you see in chapter 3, it is probably not such a hot idea to invest in palladium, if investment is your game. I don't have much other advice to offer investors.
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Also, regarding specific subsidies provided to various energy generation, I refer you to the Table 300 (Chapter 5, page 100) of the Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies report that can be downloaded at: www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/s...
Finally, please cite your sources...
Just the facts, please.
www.kitco.com/charts/p...
Reason for the spike? Read this:
www.bloomberg.com/apps...
I quote: "The metal rallied after Russia's OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the world's biggest producer, said its stockpiles of the metal may be ``depleted'' in one to five years as the government reduces its holdings."
Why the fuzzy math of "one to five years"? By using such a large margin of uncertainty, probably they are telling us, the stockpile actually has already depleted. This confirms what I infered from an earlier piece:
www.bloomberg.com/apps...
Quote: "Most of the company's stockpile is ``not necessarily in Russia,'' though an unspecified portion is being kept at Russia's State Fund of Precious Metals and Precious Stones, Berlin said. ``It's better when the exact locations of the stocks aren't known'' by the public, he said."
So there is nothing left inside Russia?
This is a huge huge event in palladium. Time to load up PAL and SWC tomorrow if you see what's unusual in the palladium lease rate spike!!!
Please see:
solarbuzz.com/SolarInd...
This shows a range of costs from 37.63c per kWh for a residential installation in a sunny climate (we live in a sunny climate) to 21.32c for an industrial system.
Solarbuzz home page gives links to more information and explanations.
As has been observed before, the holy grail for solar is grid parity. Based on this very limited observation, unless I have made an obvious error I would guess this will occur before 50 years is up.
Thanks for visiting here and leave your comment. Your link is broken. Here is the correct link to the book you wrote. I encourage people to have a look:
lenr-canr.org/acrobat/...
I admire and appreciate the courage you and your scientist colleagues have in continuing the cold fusion research for 19 years, against adverse social and peer pressures. That's the kind of courage required for science to progress.
I understand that you as a scientist, not an investor, would hesitate to give people investment advices. Nor should you give such advices. We the investors look at things from our prospect of supply and demand of commodities, cold fusion is just one of the things we look at, among others.
In your book on page 39 you do express worry that the world may not produce enough palladium for cold fusion. But I think free economy will work here. The application demand will drive up price and hence make low grade ores economical to produce to satisfy demand. Please read this government report on PGM availability:
www1.eere.energy.gov/h...
I guess that makes the case for palladium investment even stronger. And the stocks of PAL and SWC are even better leverage than the physical palladium metal as investments.
Once again thank you for coming by. Please keep us informed of the latest cold fusion developments. You probably should talk to a venture capitalist for research funding support for cold fusion.
youtube.com/watch?v=e-...
Somebody get this guy a copy of Black Swan.
I favor an "I'm All In" energy strategy that includes solar, wind, nukes, limited domestic drilling, clean coal, and the elimination of sugar tariffs and oil subsidies. Subsidies should be for solar, wind, microturbines, etc. But we should still drill in limited areas to take the pressure off. For instance I live in Florida, to I want drilling off shore no, but China plans to drill off the coast of Cuba. I would allow US oil companies to drill in a similar location (close as possible) but they would have to agree to clean up any mess they or the Chinese made. I would let them drill in ANWR, but only if they agree to the end of the oil subsidies and they would have to agree to sell the oil domestically.
People are more open to alternative ideas in good times not bad, when the stuff hits the fan people don't want to talk cold fusion.
There are other ways to play platinum such as PTD the ultra short ETN.
>> Aluminum resource on earth is virtually unlimited,
Titanium is pretty common too. But the value of refined titanium and aluminum is not based on the rarity of the element, it's based on the value of the manufacturing process. We've only scratched the surface of what industry is capable of doing with Al and Ti. The future will see many metals replaced by these. Silicone is one of the most common elements on Earth, yet that doesn't seem to lower the value of the semiconductor industry does it Mark?
>> So aluminum producers are NOT good long term players.
Any aluminum producer that ties itself to Titanium production as well cannot be ignored and they are potentially good long term players.
>> What do you mean catalyst converters and hybrid batteries will "phase
>> out"? They can't phase out, you can not sell a new vehicle without a
>> catalyst converter that is up to the environmental standard
Industry and the EPA are eager to get rid of the catalytic converter. In the space of just 20 years, the world is now polluted with platinum, which like any heavy metal, have no place in our food chain. One Australian study found that street sweepers were picking up more ppm of platinum than commercial platinum mining operations. Catalytic converters are a stop-gap solution that is no replacement for proper, stoichiometric combustion. Once hybrids become commonplace gas engines will be able to be restricted to a narrow, and ideal performance band, stoichiometry will become the order of the day, and several pollution control devices (including the catalytic converter) will create enough back pressure on the exhaust that they will actually increase pollution though efficiency loss, rather than decrease it.
>> nor can you deliver a hybrid vehicle without the big battery pack.
That's another stopgap technology. Battery packs have the problem of overheating due to the fact that they are being driven to charge faster than the chemistry can handle the lattice shifts. And of course the biggest problem with batteries are the phase conversions. You pump electrons in which convert to chemical energy and then to get electricity out again you need to convert from chemical energy. The current solution for advanced hybrids is to couple the batteries with ultracapacitors. But the capacitor industry is increasing efficiency and price roughly corresponding to Moore's Law, so how long will it be before capacitors can simply replace batteries? Answer: It can already happen, but we don't yet have motors that can properly exploit capacitor's exponential discharge characteristics. That's a separate engineering problem. But have no doubt, future hybrids will not have batteries, because of the economic realities of batteries ... specifically that they require the expensive mined metals that you love so much. Ultracapacitors on the other hand, are potentially more profitable because they can take advantage of advances in nanoscale physics and they can be built with common materials on an industrial scale. From an environmental perspective, batteries are a good technology to phase out as well, and in the future they will be as anachronistic as vacuum tubes are today.
>> Catalyst converters reduced so much air pollution which indirectly saved
>> so many lifes who would otherwise die from air pollution.
You're wrong. Proof: Honda's 1972 CVCC was so efficient that it didn't even require California exhaust modifications. Every piece of hardware that is attached to the internal combustion engine lowers the relative efficiency of a perfectly stoichiometric combustion process. The catalytic converter, along with a variety of other pollution control devices have largely displaced pollution. They have controlled particulate pollution but increased NOx pollution. The air looks cleaner, but that is because particle size distributions are now largely in the Accumulation Mode, rather than in the Course Mode, and aggregation is actually decreased. Pollution-induced lung disorders are now the number one cause of emergency room visits in the United States. In the late 1960s, ground-level ozone pollution was barely a problem, today it is a problem all over the world.
>> My calculation says each half ounce PGM metals used in catalyst
>> converters saves an average of one human life.
What calculation? How could you calculate something completely qualitative like this? What were your inputs and parameters? How do you reconcile this calculation with the fact that air pollution induced COPD and asthma are increasing, rather than decreasing?
>> As long as you burn oil, or even ethanol, in vehicles, you need to have
>> catalyst converters.
First, ethanol is a worse polluter than oil since it reacts with the oil on the cylinder walls and introduces more of the lubricant into the burn process. It is a far worse source of ground level ozone pollution than gasoline. www.relocalize.net/eth...
Second, catalytic converters will need to be phased out within twenty years, they are unsustainable.
>> The big problem with solar industry is the long payback period of solar
>> panels. If we had decades of lead time it would have worked out. But we
>> lost that already. We no longer have time to ramp up the solar industry
>> to make a significant difference in the structure of our energy supply.
That's silly. You're saying we should go with inferior technology since -- supposedly -- our 'biological clock' is ticking. Solar works today. It just works, and you can claim that it doesn't but it is being deployed throughout Developing Nations as the most cost-effective way of bringing electricity for lights, laptops, water purifiers and radios. The reason why solar is still fairly non-viable in the U.S. is not because of the technology itself, but because of our high electricity demands. If we suddenly decided that we would live with ambient temperatures in the summer, and that we would insulate, wear sweaters and heat to only about 65 degrees in the winter -- as they do in Developing Nations, then solar would be viable today.
Also, you're confusing me. You claim there isn't time to ramp up production of a technology that already works, yet you claim there is enough time to develop a brand new technology (cold fusion) which probably doesn't even work.
Same for solar. Sooner the better, as much as possible. And wind. AND, How can we ignore FREE MONEY (power or energy, the difference is time)??? My goodness.................
Marks World Energy Argument would leave France without 83% nuclear, Brazil without 45% biofuel, Germany without 40% solar, etc. And, on the average, he and I are both not here.
As for cold fusion (v/s hot fusion like goes on at the Sun right now and of which we can reap many free benefits, eg. solar - get it??)), you can start installing as much of it right now as you wish; I'll push solar (with it's low, but free, conversion efficiencies, and wind, even tho it has conversion inefficiencies. And the tortise wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mark, I am pleased that you finally admitted (further on in your article) that China's population control method is painful; of course it's only painful for those that are terminated, and somewhat less (maybe) for those with a conscience: for now, that is. You have no clue how painful it is really going to be.
No then, if the US stopped wasting 70% of it's current oil and gas consumption on moving goods and people around this country, but instead electrifed the rails and interstates to do so using solar and wind, in at least 33 years according to Mark, there would be a lot more oil and gas available for others (assuming any's left - which we do assume, and also hope); and what's best, WE WON'T BE DEPENDENT UPON IT IN THE US. NOW THAT'S A REAL BENEFIT; A REAL PAYOFF; A WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT. And, as validly mentioned many times by others various times herein and elsewhere, if solar were subsidized instead of oil, etc., WE'D LOVE THE RESULT. As for investors, they'd have to bet on solar/wind instead of buggywhips (oil/gas/coal).
As for nuclear, it will remain. However, fission is not unlimited, as stated. I'll give you a pound of fissionalble uranium and guarantee you it will provide a limited amount of energy; not so with the sun. It's truly unlimited. And consistent (you just have to broaden your perspective). Think WORLD, like Mark does. Only do so properly.
Mark should be pleased with these response. It's does sharpen his thinking. Maybe even others. Hopefully, some of it get's to DC LEADERSHIP AND THOSE THAT PUT THEM THERE.
"I understand that you as a scientist . . ."
Actually I am programmer and the technical writer, and sometimes translator.
". . . and would hesitate to give people investment advices."
I wouldn’t THINK of giving advice!
"In your book on page 39 you do express worry that the world may not produce enough palladium for cold fusion. But I think free economy will work here."
I do not think a free economy is capable of doing this, because the demand for palladium is already high, and every effort that can be made to recover it is being made. However, my main point was that the cold fusion effect can probably be produced with other, cheaper and more abundant materials such as titanium, so I do not think that palladium will be needed.
- Jed
And at the same time, the author gives further investment advice to avoid solar energy, based on speculation that is far more dubious than even the field of cold fusion ... essentially that it will be too expensive to move to one of the least expensive forms of energy production.
Has reality fled the scientific and financial establishments to the point where a weblog that touts the benefits of an untested theory over practical devices deserves a top-billed spot with the news section of a technology stock?
But then again, perhaps nothing is really new. Perhaps people have been following fantasy for their investment advice for generations, thus the reason so few people actually do well in the market over the long-term.
There are two undeniable facts here:
a) In over 15 years of modern development of the field, cold fusion researchers have yet to harness their supposed fusion source to make a practical generator, even one that would power a nightlight. Nor have they found a way to explain away the nagging violations of conservation of momentum and Relativity.
b) Across the world are millions of people that are getting affordable, practical power from photovoltaic panels, and passive solar heating/cooling.
Mark, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but the horse is already out of the gate on this one. Perhaps you could have convinced a readership that solar energy was unfeasible twenty years ago. Perhaps you could have used pathological mathematics to convince us to invest in a pretend power source rather than something real and useable. But those days are gone, and now we all know that solar energy works, and does so beautifully.
Be careful with your convictions Mark. There is no point in holding onto faulty data to your deathbed, raising a palladium-cathode in the air, proclaiming the imminent future of cold fusion, as the solar-powered robot nurse comes into your room to empty your bedpan.
I find your comments about gold and silver particularly boneheaded. The investment value of gold is that it is mispriced as money, not that it is money itself. To the extent there is recognition of the negative social consequences to most of the commodity "investing" that is currently taking place, this will invite a major popular backlash. Simply put, the commodity market is broken when higher prices resulting from long speculation (hoarding) cannot encourage additional production as a result of NATURAL CONSTRAINTS IN SUPPLY. The direct beneficiary is gold (and silver) because bullion hoarding is more socially acceptable and may represent one of the few outlets for commodity exposure in a coming investment crackdown. Those hedging dollar exposure with oil or allocating to a broad commodity index for portfolio optimization would be forced into gold and silver, which is where they should be in the first place. In fact, the main historic role of gold and silver are to protest fiscal policy, and only the greed and hubris of Wall Street have permitted a substitution of food and energy for that purpose.
". . . essentially based on the premise that cold fusion is not only real, but also on the verge of commercialization, and thus will demand massive amounts of platinum and palladium for the cat/anode system."
I agree that it is absurd to suggest that cold fusion is on the verge of commercialization. It is on the verge of extinction: most of the professors in the field are retired or dead.
It would take hundreds of millions of dollars to commercialize cold fusion and at present there is no chance such amounts will be made available.
"And at the same time, the author gives further investment advice to avoid solar energy, based on speculation that is far more dubious than even the field of cold fusion ... "
Solar energy seems to be doing well in Japan. They have always had large numbers of passive solar water heaters (heaters without pumps, I mean). Lately I have seen many PV roof installations on houses.
"There are two undeniable facts here:
a) In over 15 years of modern development of the field, cold fusion researchers have yet to harness their supposed fusion source to make a practical generator, even one that would power a nightlight."
That is incorrect. Several researchers have generated ~100 W reactions lasting for weeks. Power densities and temperatures equivalent to a conventional fission power reactor were achieved by 1991. At least six researchers (and probably a lot more) have generated transient reactions much more powerful than that, causing the cells to explode. That’s not a desirable outcome, but it is a lot of power.
This means that if you scaled up a present-day cold fusion experiment, and it worked at all, it would probably blow your head off. That is why researchers do small scale experiments. You will find photos of exploded cells at LENR-CANR.org. This also means you SHOULD NOT try these experiments at home. I mean that. Apart from everything else, they often involve boiling poisonous electrolyte.
"Nor have they found a way to explain away the nagging violations of conservation of momentum and Relativity."
Theoretical objections cannot overrule widely replicated experimental results. In any case, many distinguished theorists believe that cold fusion can be explained by conventional physics.
"There is no point in holding onto faulty data to your deathbed, raising a palladium-cathode in the air, proclaiming the imminent future of cold fusion, as the solar-powered robot nurse comes into your room to empty your bedpan."
As I said, if cold fusion can ever be made into a practical source of energy I do not think palladium will be needed.
- Jed
>> I agree that it is absurd to suggest that cold fusion is on the verge of
>> commercialization. It is on the verge of extinction: most of the professors
>> in the field are retired or dead.
I don't agree with that. Cold fusion is -- experimentally -- an application of condensed matter physics with a sprinkling of nonequilibrium dynamics and a dash of plain vanilla E&M. There is no shortage of physicists with these areas of expertise, but they typically seem to prefer to work on thin films, magnetic materials, nanoscale physics, etc., which is where the funding is. And the funding is there because they are reasonably assured of getting some results in these branches. But Cold Fusion was funded at one time, I knew of one guy that had a grant in the area, but he couldn't reproduce the original results and he couldn't get new results. Who can afford to work without funding?
>> It would take hundreds of millions of dollars to commercialize cold fusion
>> and at present there is no chance such amounts will be made available.
That's not a fair statement. That would be like me saying that it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to commercialize teleportation beams. Maybe it would, but by saying that, I'm conveniently ignoring the fact that teleportation beams don't exist and might not ever exist. By jumping to the commercialization phase, I'm ignoring the fact that the experimental phase has not yet been completed, let alone started. In other words, you can't commercialize something until you can regularly repeat the results, and cold fusion -- at least to my knowledge -- is still working on that.
>> Solar energy seems to be doing well in Japan.
Nice, I would like to see that someday. I have always wanted to go to Japan.
>> That is incorrect. Several researchers have generated ~100 W reactions
>> lasting for weeks. Power densities and temperatures equivalent to a
>> conventional fission power reactor were achieved by 1991. At least six
>> researchers (and probably a lot more) have generated transient reactions
>> much more powerful than that, causing the cells to explode. That’s not a
>> desirable outcome, but it is a lot of power.
Okay, terrific! Now where are the results? In order for them to be results they need to be published or demonstrated. If -- as they claim -- the academic publishing establishment is part of the anti-cold-fusion group, then let them file a patent and release a product. Perhaps it would cost billions to commercialize, but certainly they can release a demonstration unit for laboratories. I guarantee that if they can certify those results, they could sell at least a few hundred units for a half million each to assorted research labs. Is even that impossible? Fine, make a demonstration unit and put it on display, let the engineers and scientists have a good look and then the skepticism will disappear, right? But for now, simply reading about net power and detected helium does not equal results.
>> small scale experiments. You will find photos of exploded cells at
>> LENR-CANR.org. This also means you SHOULD NOT try these experiments
Given the right conditions I can explode batteries with a hand-turned dynamo, but that doesn't mean that I'm making fusion.
>> Theoretical objections cannot overrule widely replicated experimental
>> results. In any case, many distinguished theorists believe that cold fusion
>> can be explained by conventional physics.
You're right, results trump all else. But if those results are not repeatable, they are not results. And as it is, I have not seen an explanation that shows how momentum can be conserved while not having enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier. The only possibility I've seen is that there might be some tunneling, but tunneling follows an exponential decay with potential, so how would that be able to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Answer: It can't an the energy has to balance somewhere else.
>> As I said, if cold fusion can ever be made into a practical source of
>> energy I do not think palladium will be needed.
Okay. And I understand your affinity to cold fusion. From my perspective though, it seems that a potentially interesting field of condensed matter has been hijacked by the 'infinite energy' crackpots. I honestly believe that there is something important going on there, based on the two papers that have been published, and the other work that has not been published. But until the field can slough off the people that thinks the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Princ. doesn't apply to them, then there is no hope.
"But Cold Fusion was funded at one time, I knew of one guy that had a grant in the area, but he couldn't reproduce the original results and he couldn't get new results. Who can afford to work without funding?"
Yup. It gets even worse: I knew several scientists who were demoted because they DID get positive results. You can’t win.
">> It would take hundreds of millions of dollars to commercialize cold fusion
>> and at present there is no chance such amounts will be made available.
That's not a fair statement. That would be like me saying that it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to commercialize teleportation beams."
Except that cold fusion has been replicated at high signal to noise rations in hundreds of mainstream labs, as I mentioned. Teleportation beams have not, to my knowledge. The people who estimated hundreds of million are experts in industrial R&D in the U.S. Navy, Mitsubishi, Toyota and elsewhere. They have all replicated cold fusion and are convinced it is real.
"By jumping to the commercialization phase, I'm ignoring the fact that the experimental phase has not yet been completed, let alone started. In other words, you can't commercialize something until you can regularly repeat the results, and cold fusion -- at least to my knowledge -- is still working on that."
We can regularly repeat the results. It costs a lot of money, but it can be done. The people at the Navy who developed solid state radar systems (and who are working on cold fusion) say that application was roughly as reliable and well understood as cold fusion is today when they decided to put $200 million into in, to make it into a science. $200 mill later, voila, Aegis radar systems.
>> much more powerful than that, causing the cells to explode. That’s not a
>> desirable outcome, but it is a lot of power.
Okay, terrific! Now where are the results?
In 3,000 papers, as I mentioned, including about a 1000 in major peer reviewed journals. Not all of the editors oppose the research.
"In order for them to be results they need to be published or demonstrated. If -- as they claim -- the academic publishing establishment is part of the anti-cold-fusion group, then let them file a patent and release a product."
You can’t do that. The Patent Office instituted a written policy in April 1989, a few weeks after the announcement of cold fusion. They summarily reject all cold fusion papers. This is not a secret; I have a copy of the policy, which is evidently still be in force.
"Perhaps it would cost billions to commercialize, but certainly they can release a demonstration unit for laboratories."
Sure, I can do that. Do you have a PhD in chemistry, a year to spare, and $200,000 in equipment? Piece of cake. It is no harder than making a transistor starting from sand. It takes maybe 6 months of painstaking, exhausting work, and if you are very skilled it will probably work. It could be done in a few hours if we had the right equipment, but that would cost $20 million going in.
">> small scale experiments. You will find photos of exploded cells at
>> LENR-CANR.org. This also means you SHOULD NOT try these experiments
Given the right conditions I can explode batteries with a hand-turned dynamo, but that doesn't mean that I'm making fusion."
Well, nobody claimed these explosions prove much. Mainly they are trying to avoid them. But there is no chemical fuel in the cold fusion cells. Another cold fusion cell that did have chemical fuel in it exploded and killed a researcher. There is no doubt it was a conventional explosion. My point is that these are dangerous even when they are not undergoing a nuclear reaction. You don't want to mess with them.
">> Theoretical objections cannot overrule widely replicated experimental
>> results. In any case, many distinguished theorists believe that cold fusion
>> can be explained by conventional physics.
You're right, results trump all else. But if those results are not repeatable, they are not results."
They are repeatable. At most labs it works maybe 60 to 80% of the time. At Mitsubishi the experiments work every time. That particular experiment costs $20 million in equipment alone, and it takes a team of 6 very smart people, but it always works.
"And as it is, I have not seen an explanation that shows how momentum can be conserved while not having enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier."
That is a theoretical issue. Theory never overrules experimentally proven facts, as I mentioned.
". . . I understand your affinity to cold fusion. From my perspective though, it seems that a potentially interesting field of condensed matter has been hijacked by the 'infinite energy' crackpots. I honestly believe that there is something important going on there, based on the two papers that have been published, and the other work that has not been published."
Which two papers? As I mentioned, I have 3000 papers on this subject. A lot of them are bad, but hundreds are superb, in my opinion.
"But until the field can slough off the people that thinks the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Princ. doesn't apply to them, then there is no hope."
I do not understand why you arbitrarily assign the views of one person to another. Why do you say that a mainstream researcher at Los Alamos should be held responsible for statements made ‘infinite energy’ crackpots, or for that matter, statements made by other scientists at Los Alamos. What exactly do you want this person to do about these people? How do you go about “sloughing off” someone else’s opinion, an opinion you do not share and have probably never heard of before? Issue a restraining order? Take out a hit contract? Voodoo?
- Jed
Thank you for taking the time & effort to share your knowledge & opinions with us -- especially refuting Mark's conclusions.
Is there a solar company that in your opinion has superior technology... First Solar, Evergreen... ??
Dear Reader,
Those Saudi Arabians, you've gotta love 'em. First, 15 out of 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudis, but Saudi Arabia had NOTHING to do with it, or so we're told. They love us!
Now Saudi Arabia is about to drop another bombshell on us, and this one will make Sept. 11 look like small potatoes.
I never thought I'd say anything could make Sept. 11 look like small potatoes. But this does, at least when it comes to the economy.
Sept. 11 shut the markets down for a few days. When the next crisis hits, you'll wish the markets would shut down so you wouldn't have to watch the carnage.
What Bush learned behind closed doors
If some well-informed experts are right, Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are a fraction of what they've been telling us.
Why does it matter? Because everyone has believed for decades that Saudi Arabia's oil supply is virtually unlimited. That's what the Saudis have said over and over again for more than 30 years.
If an oil shortage threatens to cause a recession or a market crash, we can count on the Saudis to come through. So people think.
But in a private briefing, one of America's top oil experts told President George Bush exactly what I'm telling you. In fact, this same man was a consultant to the secretive task force that drew up Vice President Dick Cheney's energy plan in 2001.
In other words, the guy is a heavy hitter who knows the energy business.
He warned Bush that the Saudis don't have anything near the oil reserves they claim. They already pump less oil than most "experts" think, and here's the real kicker...
Saudi oil production is about to drop sharply. And it will keep going down for good.
Other experts have analyzed the numbers and come to the same conclusions. If the charges are true — and I believe they are — we could be facing...
Oil at $150 per barrel and gasoline at $8 a gallon
The oil is running out. It's as simple as that.
But that's not what you hear from so-called experts. If you ask government officials, our intelligence agencies and even powerful Wall Street financiers, they tell you the opposite.
They say the Saudis could quickly double their oil production from the current level if they wanted to. And given a few years, they think the Saudis could produce four times as much oil as they do now.
This is like the Iraqi WMDs all over again
The intelligence agencies and the conventional "experts" are dead wrong. The oil isn't there.
Why should you pay attention to what I think? Let me give you a good reason, and then you decide. My name is Byron King, and I'm the co-editor of Outstanding Investments.
My publication had the best track record over a five-year period of any investment newsletter in the country in 2005 and again in 2006. You can check it out at MarketWatch and its independent rating service, the Hulbert Financial Digest.
Readers who followed Outstanding Investments are up 43% so far in 2008 and averaged 79% last year. What's more, we did it all with stocks, not options, and I recommended very few trades. So it's worth your time to spend a few minutes and let me tell you...
Why 2007 was a year of crisis
The oil and gas shortages we've seen lately are nothing compared with what's on the way.
When the truth comes out, it will send shock waves through the world economy. Everyone will find out too late — when gasoline soars to $5 or $6 per gallon. I'm writing today to give you a heads-up.
The next few pages show you how to protect yourself and get rich off energy sources and technologies the world will scramble to buy at any price.
Don't be surprised if certain commodities and resource stocks soar three, five or even 10 times over.
Here are a few things you'll discover in the next
few minutes...
The most important fact — not an opinion, but a fact — that should guide your whole investment strategy.
A "minor" sector of the energy market is set to grow 17 times over. I give you the best ways to play it.
A "little" oil company owns reserves the size of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. It's not even on your radar screen, yet the stock is already up 1,000%, and readers who listened to me are currently up about half that gain — 740%. Even bigger gains are on the way.
The coal revolution is here. It's always been cheap and plentiful. Now it's going to be clean, and soon it will even be liquid. It's also going to cause a massive shift in world power. Two American companies will profit big time.
What car will you drive in 2015? Keep reading to discover a "secret play" on the winning car technology of the future. Hint: It may run on coal. MORE: Why the Prius will be a loser. And another surprise: The car makers are NOT the ones who will reap big profits from the super-car.
Discover the fastest-growing energy source in the world. Also the cleanest and safest. America may miss out, but you can still profit.
A natural gas company offers more income than CDs do. It will probably give you a 100% capital gain to boot. But you have to know about a hidden pitfall. Keep reading...
Three wild cards could send oil well over $150 in one day. One of these events may have happened by the time you read this.
I urge you to keep reading and at least consider the steps I recommend to protect yourself. Because you need to ask...
Will Americans have to read by candlelight and bike
to work?
We will if the country dodges crucial energy choices — and time is running out. It may be too late to avoid a deep recession. It's definitely too late to avoid $100 oil, thanks to...
Saudi Secrets and Funny Math
The cupboard is bare and nobody knows it
Americans used to run Aramco, the huge oil company that manages the Saudi fields. But in 1979, the Saudis booted us out and took over.
And then a funny thing happened...
The Saudis started keeping everything a secret.
No one knows for sure how much oil they've got in the ground, or how much they produce each year or how much they could produce if they wanted to push it to the max.
It's all secret. Experts try to figure out how much oil the Saudis sell by monitoring tanker traffic in and out of the world's ports. That's how little we know for sure.
But wait, it gets worse!
After the Saudis took over, an even funnier thing happened...
Their figures for proven reserves kept going up and up and up — even though they didn't find any major new oil fields!
In 1979, the Saudis adjusted proven reserves upward by 50 billion barrels. Then eight years after that, their proven reserves magically grew by another 100 billion barrels.
Their estimated reserves increased by 150% in nine years — to a total of 260 billion barrels. And they didn't find a single major new oil field!
And here's the funniest thing of all...
For the last 17 years, they've claimed they own 260 billion barrels of proven oil in the ground. The figure never goes down, even though they pumped out 46 billion barrels during that period.
Let me see...260 minus 46 equals 260. Saudi math!
Based on these bogus figures, the Saudis claim they can produce as much oil as the world wants for the next 50 years. As recently as 2004, they claimed their reserve estimates are actually conservative.
That's why most of the world's governments and intelligence services believe the Saudis could pump 20 million barrels of oil a day if they wanted to. Trouble is, we've got no proof except their say-so.
If it were true, we wouldn't have a thing to worry about. But it's not.
It's horse hockey
Before Aramco's American owners were shown the door in 1979, they told Congress that Saudi Arabia had proven reserves of 110 billion barrels. There have been no major new discoveries, so 110 billion barrels was probably about right. And since then, about half of that has been used up.
So why do the Saudis insist everything is just fine and they have 260 billion barrels of reserves?
One reason is they wanted to discourage non-OPEC nations from looking for more oil or switching to alternatives.
It was a devious plan, and it worked perfectly.
But that wasn't the only reason the Saudis lied about their reserves. They did it because everyone does it! Everyone in OPEC, that is.
The Biggest Lie of All: OPEC's Imaginary Oil
In the 1980s, OPEC's claim of total reserves magically leaped from 353 to 643 billion barrels without a single major discovery. Industry experts call it the quota war.
You see, OPEC had to limit how much oil each member could sell, because prices were too low. The quotas were based on... each member's oil reserves!
That's right: The amount of oil OPEC would let a member pump depended on how much that member had in the ground. So it paid for OPEC members to claim the biggest reserves they could. And that's what they did.
The Saudis alone jacked up their estimate by about 100 billion. Kuwait added 50% to its reserves in one year, 1985. Venezuela doubled its reserves in 1987. Iraq and Iran doubled their estimates, too.
What's more, OPEC members did like the Saudis and kept their reserve estimates the same year after year, as if no oil were being pumped out and sold.
Everyone claimed to have a bottomless well.
Now, if you're like me, you prefer to base your financial decisions on the real world, not on a fantasy.
Let's look at how much oil there really is...
In the 1970s, when Western managers were still in charge, they believed for a time that Saudi output could reach 20 million barrels a day. But by the time the Americans lost control in 1979, they figured the peak would be 12 million.
They also predicted that peak production would last only 15–20 years. 1979 plus 20 is 1999. We're past the peak, if these men were right. But we already know they were too optimistic.
The truth is that Saudi production never got to 12 million. "In all probability, output peaked in 1981 at an unsustainable level of about 10.5 million barrels per day," according to Matthew R. Simmons, a leading oil industry authority.
And yet the lies go on...
In 2004, Saudi officials claimed they boosted production to 9.5 million barrels per day and maintained that level for five months.
It's almost sure they were lying. The International Energy Agency is the group that keeps an eye on these things for the developed, oil-importing countries. The IEA could find no sign the Saudis were selling more oil.
As far as anyone can tell, they pump only around 5 million barrels a day, and that's all they've pumped for years.
It's déjà vu all over again
In spite of being lied to at least once, the IEA, the U.S. Department of Energy and other forecasters believe the Saudi claims. ALL their projections of our energy future ALWAYS assume the Saudis could produce 15–20 million barrels a day.
The lies have worked. Not only do Western politicians believe them, but so do many oil industry experts and investors with huge amounts of money at stake. They've been had
My favorite solar company is Solar Ovonics, wholly owned by Energy Conversion Devices, ENER. I like them because they seem to have no problem in redirecting profits for years to gear up manufacturing.
As a rule, I think amorphic is the only way to go, and also that the future of solar energy will be as incorporated into building materials like window, roofing panels and siding. Even if the efficiency of these methods is lower than regular panels, the key with solar is not efficiency per panel, but rather price per kilowatt. ENER seems to understand that.
BUT, I need to disclose that while I don't currently own any ENER, I plan to own it again soon. I've been in and out of the stock for years and lately, I have done very well with it.
I also like the fact that they aren't shy about manufacturing in the U.S.A..
>> Yup. It gets even worse: I knew several scientists who were demoted
>> because they DID get positive results. You can’t win.
A few months after Cold Fusion was announced, while I was an undergraduate in physics in NYC, our physics club went to Princeton to tour the Tokamak project they had going on there. Someone asked about cold fusion, and the response from one of the P.I.s there was one of being very encouraged, something along the lines of "if that works I guess we work on something else."
It's a mistake to think that the mainstream physics community was always against cold fusion, because they weren't. It developed as researchers around the world were unable to replicate Pons and Fleishman's results. A lot of people felt angry that they were duped.
Now, you report on a flavor of LENR that has little or nothing in common with Fleishman's and Pons' results. Maybe the Japanese experiment did achieve a non-chemical reaction somehow, perhaps by tunneling, but it's a very different thing to do it as they did, with deuterium, than with some household chemicals, as the original results claimed.
>> We can regularly repeat the results. It costs a lot of money, but it can be
>> done. The people at the Navy who developed solid state radar systems
>> $200 million into in, to make it into a science. $200 mill later, voila,
>> Aegis radar systems.
Aegis just exploits Maxwell's Laws to the fullest, there is no new physics there.
The scientific process demands that OTHERS have to be able to repeat the results from their published method. Even in Arata's paper, there is really little description of exactly how to do what he did. The paper needed some peer-review.
>> In 3,000 papers, as I mentioned, including about a 1000 in major peer
>> reviewed journals. Not all of the editors oppose the research.
Not Infinite Energy, not New Energy Times, or others like it, but a regular, plain vanilla peer-review journal like Physical Review Letters or Nature.
They don't have to convince the journal, they just need to convince some good reviewers. If the reviewers are on-board, and they have published with the journal, then the paper has a shot.
>> You can’t do that. The Patent Office instituted a written policy in April
>> 1989, a few weeks after the announcement of cold fusion. They summarily
>> reject all cold fusion papers. This is not a secret; I have a copy of the
>> policy, which is evidently still be in force.
Because they consider it another flavor of perpetual motion devices, which has been outlawed at the U.S.P.T.O. for nearly a hundred years. But there is nothing to prevent a patent from being filed and issued on components in Low Energy Nuclear Reactors. This one was filed in 2001:
patft.uspto.gov/netacg...=
>> It could be done in a few hours if we had the right equipment, but that
>> would cost $20 million going in.
As I've followed the progression of this process it gets further away from the original cold fusion experiment, which claimed more energy out than in. Even Arata doesn't claim that, even with deuterium.
>> That is a theoretical issue. Theory never overrules experimentally proven
>> facts, as I mentioned.
If you're telling me that Coulomb's Law fails at some point, or that the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply in some area, or that Conservation of Momentum can be violated, I'm not simply going to say "okay, find with me!" Why don't Arata and Zhang take their show on the road and bit and see what the response is? And also, their process doesn't look like it would be all that expensive. I think any decent condensed matter lab should be able to do it if they supplied clear instructions, which they don't in their paper.
>> Which two papers? As I mentioned, I have 3000 papers on this subject.
>> A lot of them are bad, but hundreds are superb, in my opinion.
How can you judge the relative worth of these papers if you have no way to replicate their findings?
>> another. Why do you say that a mainstream researcher at Los Alamos
I didn't mention anything about Los Alamos. I mention "infinite energy" crackpots because those are the people that hawk cold fusion to me. I'm willing to suspend disbelief on nearly any area of physics, even Coulomb's Law and Conservation of Momentum. But the minute someone finds a way to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, they better have a good show.
As for "sloughing" off the crackpots, LENR has a decision to make ... if they expect to publish their findings in the proper sense then they're going to have to open their labs to the disbelievers. And in doing so -- unless there is something they know that I don't -- they're going to have to be honest with their groupies that free energy is not around the corner.
But most importantly, they're going to have to be a little harder on themselves, critical of themselves, that's what good science is -- 50 misses and one hit.
>> do you go about “sloughing off” someone else’s opinion, an opinion you
>> do not share and have probably never heard of before? Issue a restraining
>> order? Take out a hit contract? Voodoo?
Funny. But LENR has an image problem ... there are still a lot of people around who remember the original failures of cold fusion, and they're not going to welcome new results so easily. Clearly the Japanese researchers seem to have some funding. The only reason that I can see for them not to come to the U.S. with some demonstrations is if either it doesn't actually work, or if they are trying to protect their intellectual property.
Neither one of these makes for good science.
I appreciate your discussion with Mike on cold fusion. I believe for the field to move ahead it is very necessary for you guys to come out of the closet, do public demostrations, discuss with the public on open forums like here and else where, and do all you can to raise public awareness.
Mike:
Who said you need to doubt the second law of thermodynamics and principles of quantum mechanics to accept the cold fusion experiments? I think my education allows me to speak on matters related to physics. It is exactly because the second law of therodynamics, as well as the uncertainty principle, that allow cold fusion to happen, when judged from a classical (non-quantum mechanical) point of view, the coloumb barrier was impossible to overcome. In any case, solid experimental result always trump over any theory, even Newton's theory or Einstein's theory. These cold fusion researchs do the experiments and see what happens. They have to believe their own eyes. So the research has continued on for 19 year and now has attracted renewed interest from the researchers community. No crackpot could have survived 19 years of scrutiny by experiments.
My main focus is palladium and platinum investment. This thesis is based on many many bullish factors, cold fusion, if successfully commercialize, is just the ice on the cake. But we do not need to count on cold fusion demand on palladium.
Jed, you are saying if cold fusion is successful it does not need palladium? I do not understand. All cold fusion experiments use palladium. There may be a few attempt of using other metals, but they at best could only be described as marginally successful, and there is been no confirmation on non-palladium based experiments.
I guess your logic is you believe the limited supply of palladium makes it impossible to commercialize cold fusion. And hence if the latter is to be successful it must see a non-palladium solution?
I can assure you the world has plenty of palladium to supply the hydrogen fuel cell and the cold fusion industry, it's just NOT at current price level. There's plenty of low, very low ore grade palladium mines, impossible to produce economically at current metal price, but will become profitable to produce when the metal price goes much higher.
Mike:
You can not believe how the establishment have dominated the science community suppressing real science while allowing absolute crackpots to prosper. You attempt to submit a cold fusion paper. Doesn't matter you call it something else, you make menioning of nuclear reaction without the extreme high temperature condition, it's automatically rejected without reading it through.
I am even surprised that APS would conduct cold fusion discussin sessions durin the March Meetings of recent years.
One example of the biggest crackpot theory in modern history that dominate the science community is the Global Warming Theory. It started as a simple hypothesis that higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may help raise the earth surface temperature ever slightly by a small fraction of one degee. That in itself is a legitimate science pursuit. But it now grow into a full blown catastrophe theory claiming that the polar ice cap is melting and that half of the world's coastal cities will all be submerged and all that, complete pananoid.
A temperature raise of 0.2 degree due to CO2 will not be able to melt an inch of polar ice, for any three year old who understand that ice melts at or above melting points.
But Al Gore win the Nobel Prize nevertheless with a few video showing the supposed melting of polar ice. I voted for him but I am disappointed at his lack of common sense.
Cold fusion could not gain funding support because there is a huge vested interest in the hot fusion gangs to see cold fusion supressed. There are hundreds of billions of dollars involved here.
Watch the "War Against Cold Fusion" video on YouTube.
>> Who said you need to doubt the second law of thermodynamics and
>> principles of quantum mechanics to accept the cold fusion experiments?
You don't. But if someone found a way of making it work, they need to both show their apparatus to an open forum, and open their results and method to inspection.
>> uncertainty principle, that allow cold fusion to happen, when judged from
>> a classical (non-quantum mechanical) point of view, the coloumb barrier
>> was impossible to overcome.
And ... ? Are you saying that they overcame the barrier through tunneling? You can't propose a purely conventional explanation to explain it because the energies are nowhere close to high enough to overcome the barrier in anything more than the tiniest tail end of the exponential.
Please understand, I have no problem with an experiment showing results and theory not able to explain those results. I've thought of some possible mechanisms to explain a process like that, specifically, that small amounts of fissionable material may be mechanically held in the metal lattice through, and the symmetrical chemical reaction from the components might induce some self-limiting nuclear reactions, the energy is still nowhere close enough, but Sam Cohen, of Lawrence Livermore has suggested a path for such reactions.
Once again though, I can't help but feel cheated in a way. I am a trusting person, and when I read results from the Japanese lab I want to believe, and then I spend valuable time looking into it. But aren't these results presented in a mainstream, peer-review fashion?
>> These cold fusion researchs do the experiments and see what happens.
>> They have to believe their own eyes. So the research has continued on for
Without critical analysis, the mind capable of producing all sorts of magic. Calorimetry requires the most careful of experimental process, it's not the kind of thing that can be done without full transparency of process.
>> No crackpot could have survived 19 years of scrutiny by experiments.
I'm not claiming the researchers are crackpots, I claim that infinite energy groupies are the crackpots. I suspect the LENR researchers -- if they had their druthers -- would rather be rid of people that want the world to run on cold fusion power.
>> But we do not need to count on cold fusion demand on palladium.
It's not a bad investment, it's definitely an excellent precious metal, and there are all sorts of uses for it in thin film deposition. But unlike you, I am not convinced of the future of catalytic converters and batteries. I think that both of these technologies -- at least for transportation -- are nearing the end of their useful lifespans. I've explained my reasonings above.
>> Jed, you are saying if cold fusion is successful it does not need palladium?
Mark, go read the results from the Japanese labs. I'm a cold fusion skeptic and even I can see that what they're proposing doesn't necessarily rely on platinum. They're talking about increasing the intermolecular separation between the deuterium by induction into a metal lattice. Platinum is so valuable in part because of its nonreactivity, so follow their logic, the key is their lattice, why is platinum critical to that?
>> You can not believe how the establishment have dominated the science
>> community suppressing real science while allowing absolute crackpots to
I have personally experience the brutal nature of the scientific establishment. But those shortcomings were not theirs, they were mine. If your science is anything less than top-notch, it probably won't go anywhere. And yes, some science that is less-than-top-notch is published, because novelty counts for something. I suspect you can put Pons, Fleishman's and Jones' original results in the latter catergory, they were rushed to publish without the proper review.
>> something else, you make menioning of nuclear reaction without the
>> extreme high temperature condition, it's automatically rejected without
>> reading it through.
Of course, just as Relativity was rejected for some time before the results were found to jibe with observations. If you want to change people's perceptions, then the results have to be presented and allowed to be carefully examined. Transparency is key here, and in my opinion, that has been severely lacking.
>> I am even surprised that APS would conduct cold fusion discussin sessions
>> durin the March Meetings of recent years.
They sponsored a whole symposium on it. Us 'establishment' jerks are not really the enemy Mark. In fact, if you read though some of the articles I've written for Physical Review Focus, you'll see that I've covered some extremely controversial subjects.
>> One example of the biggest crackpot theory in modern history that
>> dominate the science community is the Global Warming Theory.
Maybe, maybe not. The jury is still out and minds far superior to mine are grappling with the problems. But my own research is in Collision Induced Absorption, which has applications to atmospheric spectra does give me an opinion on this. And my opinion is that "Global Warming" is more a political than a scientific term. The real problem is air pollution, which nobody who has any expertise in the field disagree with. Air pollution is getting worse, it is killing people, trees and birds, it is a tremendous public health cost, and it can be controlled through intelligent combustion and a migration away from combustion. So what's the solution? Simple, get people to argue between themselves on a political issue, namely 'Global Warming' rather than focusing on the more immediate, direct and solvable problem of air pollution
>> world's coastal cities will all be submerged and all that, complete pananoid.
Maybe, maybe not. I will never underestimate a complex system's ability to completely change based on some small boundary effects. The message of the global warming 'hawkers' is for us to lower emissions, and I think that's a good idea whether global warming is real or not, because air pollution is definitely real.
>> for any three year old who understand that ice melts at or above
>> melting points.
They're talking about boundary conditions. Go read the papers, slight shifts in boundary conditions can do that.
>> Cold fusion could not gain funding support because there is a huge
>> vested interest in the hot fusion gangs to see cold fusion supressed.
And you claim that the global warming theorists are paranoid? Good science cannot be suppressed for very long.
Also, one other thing ... why do we need fusion, hot or cold? Will it really help society? Will having a terrifically complicated power source that is tightly controlled by a ruling elite really help common people? Fusion (hot or cold) is not clean either, it bombards the reaction vessel with neutrons making yet more toxic nuclear waste. Do we really need a society with limitless energy? You've seen what dirt cheap energy has done to the U.S.A. since WWII, it's made us fat, it's driven us away from our neighbors and inside in front of our televisions. It's prompted us to start wars that have no end, for instance from Mosadeq to Hussein, as one continuous chain. And this is only cheap energy, how much worse would 'free energy' make things?
As an alternative, solar energy forces us to conserve, it puts us on bicycles and in lightweight cars rather than hulking urban tanks. It lets us experience the heat of summer, the cold of winter, and be part of the world around us. It drives us to rely on neighbors and friends, it forces us to walk to the store, it encourages us to eat locally-grown food rather than exotic delicacies that have been flown in from half a world away. It encourages local manufacturing rather than offshore outsourcing. It decreases consumption of needless objects, of more food than we need.
From this perspective, fusion is EXACTLY what the ruling class would love, and solar power (along with wind, conservation and intelligent building) represents a threat to the ruling class, it is the democratization of energy and technology.
">> Yup. It gets even worse: I knew several scientists who were demoted
>> because they DID get positive results. You can’t win.
A few months after Cold Fusion was announced, while I was an undergraduate in physics in NYC, our physics club went to Princeton to tour the Tokamak project they had going on there. Someone asked about cold fusion, and the response from one of the P.I.s there was one of being very encouraged, something along the lines of "if that works I guess we work on something else.""
Yes, there were and still are many mainstream scientists who support cold fusion. A public opinion survey in Japan many years ago showed about half favor it, and the U.S. 2003 DoE panel was also split roughly 50-50. Unfortunately, some of the scientists opposed to it are influential and they are noisy. You mention the PPPL. Compare that to the response at the MIT PFL. They did a replication and achieved positive results, but they modified the data to remove the heat, published it with great fanfare, and called for the arrest and imprisonment of Fleischmann and Pons for fraud.
"It's a mistake to think that the mainstream physics community was always against cold fusion, because they weren't."
I realize that, as I said. All 2000 of the cold fusion researchers I know of are from the mainstream community. As I mentioned, they tend to be senior scientists such as Nobel laureates, FRS, the Indian Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commision, Distinguished Professor this or that, and so on. Scientists with less influence and power would not dare do this experiment, because they would fired. Also, 1.5 million people have visited LENR-CANR, and they have downloaded 1.2 million papers. These papers are only of interest to scientists. They are VERY, VERY boring.
"It developed as researchers around the world were unable to replicate Pons and Fleishman's results. A lot of people felt angry that they were duped."
Yes, I have spoken to such people.
"Now, you report on a flavor of LENR that has little or nothing in common with Fleishman's and Pons' results."
No, it is almost exactly the same, except for the method of loading. (Gas loading.) This method has been widely used.
"Maybe the Japanese experiment did achieve a non-chemical reaction somehow, perhaps by tunneling, but it's a very different thing to do it as they did, with deuterium, than with some household chemicals, as the original results claimed."
What on earth do you mean? The original experiment did not use “household chemicals”! It used Pd-D. I suggest you review the original paper, which is at LENR-CANR.
"Aegis just exploits Maxwell's Laws to the fullest, there is no new physics there."
There may not be in cold fusion, for all anyone knows. The NRL people tell me that solid state radar is NOT fully understood by any means. It was perfected by edisonian techniques. They are confident that cold fusion can be, as well.
"The scientific process demands that OTHERS have to be able to repeat the results from their published method."
Hundreds of researchers have repeated cold fusion results, as I mentioned. Several labs repeated Arata’s previous results.
"Even in Arata's paper, there is really little description of exactly how to do what he did. The paper needed some peer-review."
It was peer-reviewed, but despite that it is of very poor quality, in my opinion. There is practically no description of what he did. I do not think the experiment could be replicated from this paper. In my opinion, Arata write bad papers. He is without doubt a genius with 63 major patents, an international award in his name, a building named after him at a top National University, an award from the Emperor, etc, etc., but he writes badly.
Fortunately, a paper written by Yamaura and several others including Arata describes the same work, and it is superbly written. Plus it is in English, so I don’t have to translate it.
I think the experiment can be replicated from this paper. If it can, it will be soon, I expect.
">> In 3,000 papers, as I mentioned, including about a 1000 in major peer
>> reviewed journals. Not all of the editors oppose the research.
Not Infinite Energy, not New Energy Times, or others like it, but a regular, plain vanilla peer-review journal like Physical Review Letters or Nature."
Infinite Energy and New Energy Times are not journals, and not peer-reviewed. If you review the bibliography at LENR-CANR you will see that I mean there have hundreds of papers published in first-rate peer-reviewed journals such as Jap. J. Applied Physics and Phys. Lett. A. Not, however, in Nature. The editors at Nature are highly prejudiced against cold fusion, and they know absolutely nothing about it, because they have read nothing about it.
"Because they [the P.O.] consider it another flavor of perpetual motion devices, which has been outlawed at the U.S.P.T.O. for nearly a hundred years."
That is not given as a reason. They simply order that all applications be summarily rejected. Anyone familiar with the claims will see that cold fusion cannot be form of perpetual motion. It converts deuterium into helium.
" But there is nothing to prevent a patent from being filed and issued on components in Low Energy Nuclear Reactors. This one was filed in 2001:
patft.uspto.gov/netacg...
I realize that a few people have circumvented the ruling.
"As I've followed the progression of this process it gets further away from the original cold fusion experiment, which claimed more energy out than in. Even Arata doesn't claim that, even with deuterium."
Of course he does! For one thing, there is no input energy. It is all output, 250 kJ of heat in 100 hours. All successful cold fusion experiments produce heat.
I do not understand why you think this is further away from the original claims, or what household chemicals you have in mind. You seem confused. I suggest you review the literature.
">> That is a theoretical issue. Theory never overrules experimentally proven
>> facts, as I mentioned.
If you're telling me that Coulomb's Law fails at some point, or that the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply in some area . . ."
This is nonsense. There is no evidence that any physical laws are challenged, outside of a narrow range of laws applying to plasma fusion, which evidently do not apply. All cold fusion experiments are predicated on calorimetry, which in turn is predicated on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If it is invalid, all cold fusion excess heat results would be meaningless.
"Why don't Arata and Zhang take their show on the road and bit and see what the response is?"
Not sure which road you have in mind but if you have ever seen a cold fusion experiment you would know that moving one anywhere is impossible. I know one that had to be moved down the hall, and that took months. You seem to have some unrealistic notions about how this research is conducted.
"And also, their process doesn't look like it would be all that expensive."
It isn’t expensive. It should cost ~$250,000 in specialize equipment, plus the use of a mass spec and some other stuff that runs maybe $300,000 but you can find one at any lab. Most cold fusion experiments cost way more than this.
"I think any decent condensed matter lab should be able to do it if they supplied clear instructions, which they don't in their paper."
They don’t but Yamaura does. Where did you get the paper? Do you read Japanese?
">> Which two papers? As I mentioned, I have 3000 papers on this subject.
>> A lot of them are bad, but hundreds are superb, in my opinion.
How can you judge the relative worth of these papers if you have no way to replicate their findings?"
I am not a researcher. I don’t replicate anything. I know hundreds of researchers who replicated various cold fusion experiments, from the papers that I consider superb.
"I mention "infinite energy" crackpots because those are the people that hawk cold fusion to me. I'm willing to suspend disbelief on nearly any area of physics, even Coulomb's Law and Conservation of Momentum."
Why should you suspend belief? And why do you hold a cold fusion researcher responsible for what someone else “hawks” to you?
"But the minute someone finds a way to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, they better have a good show."
I am not aware of any such violations. As I said, they would render the results meaningless.
"As for "sloughing" off the crackpots, LENR has a decision to make ..."
LENR is not person or organization. It is a natural phenomenon. It is not capable of making decisions. Researchers in this field have no responsibility for one another or control over one another. They can no more “decide” how the flakes will act than you or I can.
"But most importantly, they're going to have to be a little harder on themselves, critical of themselves, that's what good science is -- 50 misses and one hit."
This is nonsense. I have never met a group of researchers as honest or self-critical as the top cold fusion researchers, and I have met a wide variety of people. They are best scientists of the WWII “greatest generation” and far better than most researchers under age 60. In my opinion, Fleischmann is one the greatest scientists who ever lived.
- Jed
“I appreciate your discussion with Mike on cold fusion. I believe for the field to move ahead it is very necessary for you guys to come out of the closet, do public demostrations, discuss with the public on open forums like here and else where, and do all you can to raise public awareness.”
I do not know any cold fusion researchers in closets. They are (or were) nearly all distinguished scientists at major universities and national labs. Most of them now are retired, or dead. They were distinguished and politically powerful because otherwise they would not have been allowed to do these experiments.
There is no chance any of them will do public demonstrations. It is physically impossible. You can barely fit a dozen people into Arata’s lab, and in any case this was not really the public. It was an audience of researchers and a few science reporters. An ordinary person observing this experiment would not be able to make head or tail of it. I have seen many cold fusion experiments and it took me a while to figure out what’s what with this one.
"Jed, you are saying if cold fusion is successful it does not need palladium? I do not understand. All cold fusion experiments use palladium."
No, several use Ti, some use Ni, and a few use HTSC ceramics. I am not convinced Ni works, but the Italians have published some darn good work with it. Pd produces the most heat as far as I know, and it is the only material that has achieved power density and temperatures as high as U fission reactor cores. But once the physical principles are worked out I think it is likely that Ti will work equally well. Not a sure thing of course, but nothing about cold fusion is certain, except that it exists.
"There may be a few attempt of using other metals, but they at best could only be described as marginally successful . . ."
The Ti results at BARC were not marginally successful in my opinion. See the autoradiograph (x-ray film) they sent me:
www.lenr-canr.org/Expe...
"I guess your logic is you believe the limited supply of palladium makes it impossible to commercialize cold fusion."
Not impossible. Martin Fleischmann estimated that Pd could produce about 1/3rd of our primary energy, in centralized power plants. (I think that’s what he said.) I did some crude estimates and came up with similar numbers. Other materials would allow decentralized generation, which would be far more cost-effective. See my book for details.
"I can assure you the world has plenty of palladium to supply the hydrogen fuel cell and the cold fusion industry . . ."
I doubt that. More to the point, Fleischmann and Bockris doubt that, and they are the world’s top experts in platinum group metals, fuel cells and the like. They invented a large part of that technology, and they made huge contributions to cold fusion.
- Jed
>> Yes, I have spoken to such people.
The nature of physics teaches us to have long memories, you need to remember this effect or where to find that method to solve this particular type of differential equation. So you know, fooled us once, there better be a very compelling reason to subject ourselves to getting fooled again. If it were a field that didn't violate our already established theory, that would be one thing. But cold fusion now has two big strikes against it, nobody can explain it within existing theoretical framework, and its foundation was rotten. How could any cold fusionist hold anything against the mainstream physics community after that? And of course there is that guilt by association. Any area of science that is hawked by Lyndon Larouche and other infinite energy folks is just going to seem a little rotten.
To your credit Jed, you come across as genuinely interested in the science.
>> What on earth do you mean? The original experiment did not use
>> “household chemicals”! It used Pd-D. I suggest you review the original
>> paper, which is at LENR-CANR.
I'm familiar with the original work, the more recent Japanese work is far more complex.
>> The NRL people tell me that solid state radar is NOT fully understood by
>> any means. It was perfected by edisonian techniques.
Solid State Physics changes by the minute, that is normal. My graduate text in solid state by Kittel was updated every year, it is already on the eighth edition. Compare that to Jackson's E&M, which is only on the third edition, and which is nearly identical to the first. Solid State is full of the 'black arts' there are so many different ways of explaining an effect.
>> They are confident that cold fusion can be, as well.
Confident that cold fusion can be explained by existing theory? I'll believe all sorts of things Jed, but if they're getting any more than 2% increase on the output, and if they're measuring helium that wasn't locked up in a lattice, then there is no way in h*ll that they're going to explain that with conventional physics. It's like telling me that I can power the lights in the football stadium with a few D-batteries. The order of magnitudes are comparable.
>> Hundreds of researchers have repeated cold fusion results, as I
>> mentioned. Several labs repeated Arata’s previous results.
References?
>> The editors at Nature are highly prejudiced against cold fusion, and
>> they know absolutely nothing about it, because they have read nothing
Would you expect anything else, after they got burned the first time?
>> I suggest you review the literature.
No. I'm done with cold fusion. I am in up to my eyeballs with research in my primary area, which is not even remotely connected with cold fusion And I've been burned by cold fusion, as a science journalist. I vouched for some of these people, I put my name on my reporting with the good faith to may readers that I was reporting on something that had been reviewed and something that was replicatable. It was neither. My science journalism career took a hit because of cold fusion, why should march into the lion's mouth again? If I had more time, and if I wasn't struggling with my own research, maybe. But if cold fusion wants to convince me, it has to come to my area ... let us look at the equipment, let us watch the process.
>> There is no evidence that any physical laws are challenged, outside of a
>> narrow range of laws applying to plasma fusion, which evidently do not
No laws challenged? Do you mean except for Coulomb's Law? How do you not considered those challenged?
>> you would know that moving one anywhere is impossible.
Fleishman and Pon's fit on a tabletop.
>> They don’t but Yamaura does. Where did you get the paper? Do you
>> read Japanese?
I read the English translation, I assume.
>> researchers who replicated various cold fusion experiments, from
>> the papers that I consider superb.
But if you have no way of verifying either the theory or the experiment, how can you have an opinion one way or another on these papers?
>> Why should you suspend belief? And why do you hold a cold fusion
>> researcher responsible for what someone else “hawks” to you?
I don't blame them for the hangers-on, but the hanger-on do muck things up a bit. If anyone were looking for a conspiracy to suppress cold fusion, they need look no futher than guys like Larouche and Mallove. Those guys could make an IRS audit seem fishy.
>> They can no more “decide” how the flakes will act than you or I can.
Not true. Fleischmann is a terrific physicist, definitely better than me, he actually wrote my undergraduate physics textbook. But I wonder why he didn't take his lumps and work back into trust. I don't think it was the best decision to make the same mistake that got him in that jam to begin with.
>> This is nonsense. I have never met a group of researchers as honest or
>> self-critical as the top cold fusion researchers, and I have met a wide
The cold fusion papers that I have read would largely not be published in a regular journal, they are missing transparency. Just the fact that you are under the impression that this process can happen without somehow breaking through a Coulomb barrier doesn't say a lot for the transparency of their communications.
>> In my opinion, Fleischmann is one the greatest scientists who ever lived.
I suspect that in the future, history will remember Ovinshky more than Fleischmann when the subject turns to inventor scientists. My favorite inventor scientist is Ashok Gadgil, he is my inspiration and the reason I do what I do. My favorite scientist is Planck, the polar opposite of Fleischmann. All Planck wanted, more than anything else, was for someone to invalidate his theory, so that he wouldn't have to rely on such an act of "desperation." He changed the world forever, and simply hated the results of his brilliance.
And more than that, fusion -- although slightly better than fission -- still makes a poor energy source.
The most advanced energy source, from a societal point of view, is human power. Hand-cranked flashlights, bicycles, walking, pedal-powered dynamos that power a batter to run your laptop for an hour, etc. This is the only source of energy that puts people in touch with the true cost of energy. If homes were human-powered (obviously except for HVAC) we would be far more conservative with our energy needs, I am certain. We would also all live a long time and wouldn't need a ton of hospitalization.
The funny thing is, when I mention human-power to all of the infinite energy geeks I meet, they look at me like I have two heads and immediately blow off my point-of-view. Imagine that, we live in a world where people are more likely to put their faith in a perpetual motion machine than in their own bodies.
”>> Yes, I have spoken to such people.
The nature of physics teaches us to have long memories, you need to remember this effect or where to find that method to solve this particular type of differential equation. So you know, fooled us once, there better be a very compelling reason to subject ourselves to getting fooled again.”
These people fooled themselves. They did the wrong experiment, against the advice of Fleischmann, Bockris and other knowledgeable electrochemists. There was no chance they would succeed.
“ If it were a field that didn't violate our already established theory, that would be one thing. But cold fusion now has two big strikes against it, . . . nobody can explain it within existing theoretical framework, and its foundation was rotten.”
It foundation is now as rock solid as any claim can be. It was widely replicated at a high signal to noise ratio. That is the only standard of “rock solidness” in experimental science. The fact that it cannot be explained is irrelevant.
“>> What on earth do you mean? The original experiment did not use
>> “household chemicals”! It used Pd-D. I suggest you review the original
>> paper, which is at LENR-CANR.
I'm familiar with the original work, the more recent Japanese work is far more complex.”
In what way? Again, which “household chemicals” do you have in mind? I am intrigued.
“>> They are confident that cold fusion can be, as well.
Confident that cold fusion can be explained by existing theory? I'll believe all sorts of things . . .”
Then I suggest you review the theories, and see if you believe them.
">> Hundreds of researchers have repeated cold fusion results, as I
>> mentioned. Several labs repeated Arata’s previous results.
References?"
SRI and a bunch of Italians. Look it up. That’s why I put a Google search box at LENR-CANR.org.
“ >> The editors at Nature are highly prejudiced against cold fusion, and
>> they know absolutely nothing about it, because they have read nothing
Would you expect anything else, after they got burned the first time?”
They were not “burned.” They were completely wrong from the start. I would expect them to read the literature before judging an experiment. They have not done this.
“>> I suggest you review the literature.
No. I'm done with cold fusion.”
Then I suggest you refrain from commenting on it. Your statements about “household chemicals” and the like are not in evidence, so I suspect you know little about this subject. You cannot know about experiments by ESP, or by guessing, or by reading wikipedia. Cold fusion is important research and nobody should endorse it or reject it without careful study.
“And I've been burned by cold fusion, as a science journalist. I vouched for some of these people, I put my name on my reporting with the good faith to may readers that I was reporting on something that had been reviewed and something that was replicatable. It was neither.”
It was both. That is a matter of fact that you can verify at LENR-CANR or at any university library. You cannot wave your and make matters of fact disappear.
”>> There is no evidence that any physical laws are challenged, outside of a
>> narrow range of laws applying to plasma fusion, which evidently do not
No laws challenged? Do you mean except for Coulomb's Law? How do you not considered those challenged?”
I am not a theorist. I suggest you read theory papers.
“>> you would know that moving one anywhere is impossible.
Fleishman and Pon's fit on a tabletop.”
It filled a room. All cold fusion experiments do.
“>> researchers who replicated various cold fusion experiments, from
>> the papers that I consider superb.
But if you have no way of verifying either the theory or the experiment, how can you have an opinion one way or another on these papers?”
I have verified the experiment by reading about replications and observing them. I do have to do an experiment myself to know that it has been replicated in hundreds of labs. Anyone can learn that fact by reading peer-reviewed journals.
“I don't think it was the best decision to make the same mistake that got him in that jam to begin with.”
He made no mistakes. His work was replicated and confirmed. You and others can repeat this lie that he made a mistake as many times as you like, but that does not make it the truth.
”The cold fusion papers that I have read would largely not be published in a regular journal . . .”
Whereas the ones I refer to were published in regular journals. In fact, they were published in first-rate, world-class journals.
- Jed
>> the advice of Fleischmann, Bockris and other knowledgeable
>> electrochemists. There was no chance they would succeed.
They followed the original published paper. How is that against the advice of Fleischmann? A proper project should explain the experimental process to without needing too much outside explanation.
>> at a high signal to noise ratio. That is the only standard of “rock
>> solidness” in experimental science. The fact that it cannot be explained
>> is irrelevant.
Are you saying that all of the results were replicatable? That wasn't my experience. In fact my experience was the opposite, I didn't know anyone that could replicate the results. (A few years later, I did meet Ken Shoulders when I was at the Wall Street J., and I vaguely that he was able to replicate, but I don't recall for sure, since I was working in a different area by then.)
Maybe things have changed now, maybe the research is better, I don't know. But Fleishmann and Pons were at the source on the last go around.
>> In what way? Again, which “household chemicals” do you have in mind?
>> I am intrigued.
They used fairly standard cathodes, calorimetry and electrolytes, it was all pretty standard except for the way that they had it all work together. Now, people are talking about altering the average atomic distances through irradiation of the material into the unit cell, but that explanation just didn't exist back then.
>> Then I suggest you review the theories, and see if you believe them.
I've looked at it a bit, and I don't see how they can overcome the Coulomb Barrier except through some kind of lepton exchange or else some of my own ideas like symmetric Casimir attraction (a long shot) or else possibly some way of the lattice dielectric messing with the e-field. You haven't explained how they overcome it either, you wrote that there is no violation happening. I can think of about five other ways that they might be able to overcome the barrier, but I haven't read of a single one of those explanations, and I'm not really in the mood to become a cold fusionist because I have an ethical disagreement with atomic power. And guess what, so far, nobody is getting their energy from hot fusion, from cool fusion or from cold fusion. So could it be that perhaps, fusion just isn't practical unless it comes from the sun?
>> SRI and a bunch of Italians. Look it up. That’s why I put a Google
>> search box at LENR-CANR.org.
I'm familiar with a lot of this stuff, and I've put my career on the line with some of the exotics ... I don't have a closed mind to it. But it should be simple enough to have your top five references without telling me to "Google" it.
>> They were not “burned.” They were completely wrong from the start. I
>> would expect them to read the literature before judging an experiment.
>> They have not done this.
Well their article didn't get the brunt of the criticism that Fleishmann's and Pon's got, because Jones has some reasonable ideas for the theory. But it wasn't their job to judge the experiment or the read the literature, they're the publisher ... the referees are supposed to do that. But the whole thing was rushed, they took a chance and things didn't go well.
>> Then I suggest you refrain from commenting on it.
I have strong opinions on it, and I think about it a lot. If I agreed wholeheartedly with you but had zero background then would you welcome my opinion? Are the only people that are allowed to comment on it other cold fusionists? That's exactly what I am saying is wrong with the field! It should be able to weather dissent. Hell, talk to me about particulate air pollution and coagulation, I wish someone would give me a little workout, when you know your science, dissent isn't stressful, or part of a conspiracy, it's just fun.
>> Your statements about “household chemicals” and the like are not in
>> evidence, so I suspect you know little about this subject.
I'm not a physics genius, and that works in my favor every now and then. My simple little mind wants to know how they can get the nuclei close enough for the reaction, my simple little mind wants to know hwo the lepton numbers balance with not enough muons. The fact is, physicists never know enough about areas outside of their own area of research. But we have minds, we can think. I respect the world out of Julian Schwinger's work, and I read his cold fusion explanation. But you aren't even willing to engage me in these questions. So I ask you, how are YOU qualified to talk about cold fusion?
>> You cannot know about experiments by ESP, or by guessing, or by
>> reading wikipedia. Cold fusion is important research and nobody
>> should endorse it or reject it without careful study.
I was there when the Valdez ran aground Jed, I've been following this as long or longer than you have.
>> It was both. That is a matter of fact that you can verify at LENR-CANR
>> or at any university library. You cannot wave your and make matters of
>> fact disappear.
That's what you're doing. When the original results came out, they were largely not repeatable. Now you claim that they're repeatable. But this is the late 2000s, not the mid 1990s, and the researchers are all different now. The results are being repeated -- I assume by cold fusionists. I want to see results that are replicated by a run-of-the-mill physical chemist with an interest in this area, or by someone with access to a good electrochemistry lab. But surprise, most of them won't touch it because the first go round was a disaster. Why was it a disaster Mike? Uh, search me, but you would expect the original researchers to have tied up all the loose ends before they presented their findings, that's the way things are done. Why didn't they do that? Good question, which leads us back to the start of this debate.
>> I am not a theorist.
Then perhaps you should preface your comments with the disclaimer: "My opinion is based on trust."
>> It filled a room. All cold fusion experiments do.
All good experiments fill a room. But any well-equipped lab already has most of the measuring equipment available, the power supplies, the discharge and priming systems, and high-energy stuff if needed. The heart of that experiment -- as it was sold to me -- is the reaction vessel and unique cat/anode arrangement. The rest of the room is measurement and containment.
>> He made no mistakes. His work was replicated and confirmed. You and
>> others can repeat this lie that he made a mistake as many times as you
>> like, but that does not make it the truth.
And what of the people that I knew that spent a year trying to replicate. Are they the liars? Are they bad experimentalists? Are they in on the conspiracy?
>> Whereas the ones I refer to were published in regular journals. In fact,
>> they were published in first-rate, world-class journals.
Okay, the Japanese journals are excellent. I would like to see the work published in the kind of journals I see in the U.S.. And remember, Japanese industry has a stake in cold fusion, which influences the publishing. Same thing in the U.S. with magnetic materials, and nanomaterials, etc..
Jed, you may not know it, but guys like me are good friends to fields like LENR, I'm urging y'all to do things on the straight and narrow. If there is value to your science, that will serve you best. And so what if I hate nuclear power? If your thing works, it will roll over guys like me. So rather than suggesting that I "not comment" you should welcome my comments with open arms. How many other physicists on this thread are willing to spend valuable time typing up responses to you?
I wish people would do this for me!
They did the wrong experiment, against
>> the advice of Fleischmann, Bockris and other knowledgeable
>> electrochemists. There was no chance they would succeed.
They followed the original published paper."
I do not know who you are referring to, but I meant high energy plasma physicists. They did it wrong.
"Are you saying that all of the results were replicatable? That wasn't my experience."
Experience has nothing to do with it. The only way to determine whether it was replicated or not is to review the published literature. It shows that 1990, roughly 100 groups around the world replicated. See:
www.lenr-canr.org/acro...
"Maybe things have changed now, maybe the research is better, I don't know. But Fleishmann and Pons were at the source on the last go around."
This is factually incorrect, as I said. You cannot just make up facts as you go along. You have to have proof, in the form of published scientific papers. I have them; you don’t. Therefore you are wrong. It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat yourself: you are still wrong.
">> In what way? Again, which “household chemicals” do you have in mind?
>> I am intrigued.
They used fairly standard cathodes, calorimetry and electrolytes, it was all pretty standard except for the way that they had it all work together."
These are not household chemicals. Calorimetry and electrolytes has been the same since the 1840s. The cells were custom designed.
"Now, people are talking about altering the average atomic distances through irradiation of the material into the unit cell, but that explanation just didn't exist back then."
I have not anything about this research. Arata has not used this approach.
"Well their article didn't get the brunt of the criticism that Fleishmann's and Pon's got, because Jones has some reasonable ideas for the theory."
Anyone who judge or reject an experimental finding because it is not supported by a theory does not understand the scientific method.
"I have strong opinions on it, and I think about it a lot. If I agreed wholeheartedly with you but had zero background then would you welcome my opinion?"
No, I do not welcome any opinion unsupported by evidence, strong or weak, positive or negative. If you have not read the literature you have no right to an opinion.
"Are the only people that are allowed to comment on it other cold fusionists?"
No. The only people who should comment are those who know something about. When other people comment, they make fools of themselves and waste everyone’s time. You cannot do science by guessing or by ESP. It must be fact-based.
"The fact is, physicists never know enough about areas outside of their own area of research. But we have minds, we can think."
You cannot think about an experiment unless you first learn about it.
"I respect the world out of Julian Schwinger's work, and I read his cold fusion explanation. But you aren't even willing to engage me in these questions."
I am not willing to engage in this because, as I said, I know nothing about theory. Unlike you, I never discuss subjects I know nothing about.
"So I ask you, how are YOU qualified to talk about cold fusion?"
You can read the papers I have written and judge whether I am qualified. See my reviews of McKubre and Miles.
"I was there when the Valdez ran aground Jed, I've been following this as long or longer than you have."
You seem to know little or nothing about it.
">> It was both. That is a matter of fact that you can verify at LENR-CANR
>> or at any university library. You cannot wave your and make matters of
>> fact disappear.
That's what you're doing. When the original results came out, they were largely not repeatable."
That is incorrect, as I said. Experts worldwide soon repeated them, within a year in most cases.
"Now you claim that they're repeatable."
No, the data shows that they are repeatable. What I claim has nothing to do with it. This is not a matter of opinion.
">> I am not a theorist.
Then perhaps you should preface your comments with the disclaimer: 'My opinion is based on trust.'"
My opinion is not based on theory. Cold fusion is not based on theory. It is based on experiments, which I do understand.
"And what of the people that I knew that spent a year trying to replicate. Are they the liars? Are they bad experimentalists? Are they in on the conspiracy?"
Who are they? Where did they publish? After I read about their work I can probably tell you why they failed. If they did not publish, I have no way of knowing.
"Okay, the Japanese journals are excellent. I would like to see the work published in the kind of journals I see in the U.S."
There are top-notch U.S. publications as well, as you would know if you would take some time to review the literature. The fact that you do not know that once again reveals that you are pontificating about a subject you know nothing about.
This is rather tiresome. If you do not wish to read anything about cold fusion, fair enough. Go ahead and make comments that reveal your ignorance. Continue making up facts as you go along -- whatever pops into your head must be right! Household chemicals?!? Sure, why not? What's next? Enough already. I do not feel like responding to someone who will not do his homework, or stick to the facts.
- Jed
"I have not HEARD anything about this research. Arata has not used this approach."
"Anyone who WOULD judge or reject an experimental finding because it is not supported by a theory does not understand the scientific method."
Several others words missing. Please interpolate.
Sorry. Minor neurological problems sometimes interfere with my communications. (Seriously.)
- Jed
Thanks for coming here and explain your stand points. I enjoyed your debate with Mike.
Whether any one knows cold fusion or not, he/she should accept that experiments ALWAYS trump over theories. That's the basis of any science and if any one has a problem with this principle, he/she can not discuss matters of science.
People who have done cold fusion experiments day in and day out for 19 years, as well as people who interacts with such scientists, of course are way much more entitled to discuss cold fusion experiments, than people who hasn't even bothered to check out some of the papers written. That is, unless you believe all the cold fusion researchers are part of a gigantic conspiracy to create a giant hoax for 19 years.
From what I read about cold fusion, I have to agree that the experiments are real and repeatable, and the cold fusion researchers are trust worthy people. Some of them are very reputable in their research fields.
And people have to respect the fact that even APS (American Physical Society) sponsored talk sessions during the March Meetings in recent years. That is a pretty big deal and a big endorsement that the experimental phenomenas are real.
I just hope a commercially viable demo can be produced soon. As claimed by a Russian scientist:
www.hindu.com/seta/200...
The company is private, has 650 millions funding
"Whether any one knows cold fusion or not, he/she should accept that experiments ALWAYS trump over theories. That's the basis of any science and if any one has a problem with this principle, he/she can not discuss matters of science."
You would be surprised how many people do not accept that. Even some professional scientists do not. Many people pay lip service to the idea, but they ignore it when it comes to cold fusion.
"From what I read about cold fusion, I have to agree that the experiments are real and repeatable, and the cold fusion researchers are trust worthy people. Some of them are very reputable in their research fields."
They are indeed. There are also many flakes, but that is true of any research, or for that matter, any profession.
"And people have to respect the fact that even APS (American Physical Society) sponsored talk sessions during the March Meetings in recent years."
Actually, the APS will hold a session on any subject the members want. You get some number of members together and the session is automatically scheduled. The ACS (American Chemical Society) on the other hand, has sponsored cold fusion sessions lately, and published a book, that I do not have yet. That is a sign of progress.
- Jed
>> I do not know who you are referring to, but I meant high energy plasma
>> physicists. They did it wrong.
Okay. I didn't know a single high energy guy that even attempted it, they didn't have the right equipment anyway, and high-energy guys are typically "mission-control' type scientists, with expertise in a narrow area. The ones I remember that tried it were the ones with access to fuel-cell type labs, electrochemistry labs, condensed matter labs, etc..
Of course, except for the interferometer, people don't publish null results, so both of us are kind of at a loss on this one.
I'll check out your list of folks that replicated.
>> This is factually incorrect, as I said.
What?!?! Are you now claiming that Fleishman and Pons were not the impetus for the round of research in the 1990s? This discussion is getting strange.
>> It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat yourself: you are still wrong.
About what? As I said, people don't publish null results.
>> These are not household chemicals. Calorimetry and electrolytes has
>> been the same since the 1840s. The cells were custom designed.
To a condensed matter physicists and electrochemist, these things are like a flour and sugar in any kitchen. Custom calorimeters and reaction vessels are designed and made regularly as well. My department -- as with most departments -- have a CAD/CAM machine shop that cranks these things out.
>> I have not anything about this research. Arata has not used this approach.
Arrata has not used which approach? If he's getting cool fusion he's going to have to either lower the internuclear distance or have a lepton mediator. Nuclei tend to resist fusing you know.
>> Anyone who judge or reject an experimental finding because it is not
>> supported by a theory does not understand the scientific method.
Jones' cool fusion was generously supported by balls-on theory, and his results were replicated regularly. You would have to hunt pretty hard to find anyone in the mainstream physics community that has a problem with cool fusion. The problem at the time was that some cool-fusion experiments were labeled cold-fusion experiments.
>> If you have not read the literature you have no right to an opinion.
Read how much of the literature? I've read quite a bit over the last twenty years. The world is full of people wtih opinions on global warming who have read not a single scholarly paper on the subject.
Just because I have not read the specific paper that you want me to read does not invalidate my opinion.
>> The only people who should comment are those who know something
>> about. When other people comment, they make fools of themselves and
>> waste everyone’s time.
I know enough about the processes and history to comment.
>> You cannot do science by guessing or by ESP. It must be fact-based.
Agree, 100%.
>> I am not willing to engage in this because, as I said, I know nothing about
>> theory.
I don't remember you saying this until now.
>> You can read the papers I have written and judge whether I am qualified.
>> See my reviews of McKubre and Miles.
If you haven't performed experiments and you don't do theory, what kind of papers can you write? Literature reviews?
>> You seem to know little or nothing about it.
Perhaps from your perspective.
>> That is incorrect, as I said. Experts worldwide soon repeated them, within
>> a year in most cases.
I'm not debating that experts didn't repeat them. I'm saying that most of the people I had contact with, could not repeat the results. 20 hits and 80 misses is a problem.
>> My opinion is not based on theory. Cold fusion is not based on theory.
>> It is based on experiments, which I do understand.
That's part of the problem, cold fusionists keep repeating the mantra "experiment trumps theory" but then use theory to explain away things that do not work.
>> Who are they? Where did they publish?
Null results rarely publish. You claim they did the experiment wrong. Why would they do it wrong? Were they too stupid? Bad experimentalists? Axe to grind?
>> The fact that you do not know that once again reveals that you are
>> pontificating about a subject you know nothing about.
I can name the most obscure branch of science and come up with at least ten papers in Physical Review. Yet for some bizarre reason, if you exclude lepton-mediated cool fusion, there are only two papers on cold fusion in P.R.. Why?
>> This is rather tiresome. If you do not wish to read anything about cold
Tell ya what, you forward one paper for me to read in your area, and I'll study it up. And I'll send you one paper in your area and you can study it up so that we can communicate properly, and then discuss. Deal?
>> I do not feel like responding to someone who will not do his homework,
>> or stick to the facts.
Strange, this conversation is starting to resemble all of the others ones I've had with infinite energy guys.
If you do nothing else, answer this one question: With all of the areas of physics research, why do cold fusion and cosmology seem to have so many "groupies"? Why is there not this kind of support for neutrino oscillation research for instance? Or nonequilibrium dynamics? Or thin film research, or even cool fusion for that matter?
Why do I always seem to get into debates about cold fusion, but not fluid mechanics? Could it possibly be that the desire for infinite energy has hijacked the science of cool fusion and turned it into the metascience of cold fusion?
>> some professional scientists do not. Many people pay lip service to the
>> idea, but they ignore it when it comes to cold fusion.
We all know that results trump theory. But if your results violate the theory, then we're not just going to give 100% trust without verification. Your idea of verification is saying "this researcher showed that result." My idea of verification is that researcher making a public display of his/her work.
>> "From what I read about cold fusion, I have to agree that the experiments
>> are real and repeatable, and the cold fusion researchers are trust worthy
>> people. Some of them are very reputable in their research fields."
Are you sure you are even reading cold fusion results? How do you know you are are not reading cool fusion results?
>> They are indeed. There are also many flakes, but that is true of any
>> research, or for that matter, any profession.
I suspect you will find proportionately fewer flakes in areas like low-energy physics, thin films and condensed matter physics. In fact, 'flakiness' is not even a question in these areas. When someone writes that they found -- for instance -- a certain diffusion barrier is effective in Titanium Oxide/Si depositions, you can pretty much take their word on it that when you do try said diffusion barrier, you will get that exact result. And please don't claim that it is much easier and/or more repeatable to make diffusion barriers, they are just as complex as cool fusion.
One more thing, it's not correct to assume that I cannot make a statement about cold fusion just because I am not as up-to-date with the literature as you are. I do have experience with measuring radiation and I know how incredible difficult it is to screen out background radiation. One project going on in my department is a low-energy detection experiment. Just to give you an idea of how difficult it is to get a decent measurement, these sensors will be placed deep inside of salt caverns, and then shielded carefully. Much of the preliminary work is simply characterising the radiation background from all the components in the experiment, including plastic knobs and teflon gaskets, containment material etc.. The experiment is so sensitive that humans can't be anywhere nearby, because the radiation contained withing people (about 7000 bequerels) is strong enough to swamp the sensors.
So when I see results that relies a tiny variance in neutron flux, it tends to make me say 'hmmm.'
Also, regarding the papers you mentioned, is one of the Italian papers from the team on Bologna? If so, I am familiar with those results and I have nary a quibble with them. But please understand, this is not cold fusion, it's cool fusion. And cool fusion is an accepted effect with little dissent compared to cold fusion.
Even the great John David Jackson (whom I have had a short email conversation with years ago, until he realized I am a nobody) predicted and explained the process beautifully. But understand too, that the self-limiting nature of lepton-induced fusion (usually muons) is important, thus the low energy. If Mother Nature didn't self-limit the process we wouldn't be here to have this debate.
So when you and Mark discuss cold fusion, you are not including cool fusion in your arguments are you? Because I have no problem with cool fusion, it's as beautiful an aspect of nature to me as a butterfly or a rose.
“>> I do not know who you are referring to, but I meant high energy plasma
>> physicists. They did it wrong.
Okay. I didn't know a single high energy guy that even attempted it, they didn't have the right equipment anyway . . .”
Here is a list. You are correct that they did not have the right equipment:
Number
First author Of People Institution
Albagli 16 MIT
Anderson 11 Yale
Campbell 2 Lawrence Livermore N. L.
Deakin 5 Florida State U.
Dignan 4 San Francisco State U.
Ewig 4 Sandia N. L.
Faller 3 Env. Monitoring Systems Lab.
Fleming 5 AT&T Bell Labs.
Guilinger 9 Sandia N. L.
Hayden 10 U. British Columbia
Hill 11 Iowa State U.
Kashy 10 Michigan State U.
Porter 8 U. California Berkeley
Rehm 3 Argonne N. L.
Roberts 12 U. Michigan
Rugari 7 Yale/Brookhaven
Schirber 8 Sandia N. L.
Silvera 2 Harvard U.
Southon 4 McMaster U.
Wiesmann 1 Brookhaven N. L.
Totals: 20 groups, 135 people
“>> This is factually incorrect, as I said.
What?!?! Are you now claiming that Fleishman and Pons were not the impetus for the round of research in the 1990s? This discussion is getting strange.”
It is mixed up. You wrote: "Maybe things have changed now, maybe the research is better, I don't know. But Fleishmann and Pons were at the source on the last go around." When I said “This is factually incorrect” I meant that things have not changed, the research was good all along. You keep saying there was a problem or that it failed or that it was not replicated. That is incorrect. F&P were the source, and they were replicated and vindicated. Only in the fact-free imagination of the skeptic is this not the case.
”>> It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat yourself: you are still wrong.
About what? As I said, people don't publish null results.”
I have seen many null results. I know why the experiments failed, in many cases.
”Arata has not used which approach? If he's getting cool fusion he's going to have to either lower the internuclear distance or have a lepton mediator. Nuclei tend to resist fusing you know.”
He has done nothing like that. Cold fusion does not require that. That sounds like a rather crude method. Nuclei do not resist fusing in the conditions of cold fusion metal lattices.
”Jones' cool fusion was generously supported by balls-on theory, and his results were replicated regularly.”
I do not know of any replications of his work. But of course there may be experiments I have not heard about. Name one.
“Read how much of the literature? I've read quite a bit over the last twenty years. The world is full of people wtih opinions on global warming who have read not a single scholarly paper on the subject.”
Scholarly papers are the only source of information on cold fusion. There are no popular books, unless you count Beaudette, which I think the man on the street might find about as difficult as paper.
“Just because I have not read the specific paper that you want me to read does not invalidate my opinion.”
As far as I can judge from you comments, you have not read any papers on cold fusion. Perhaps I am wrong. Why don’t you list one or two authors you have read?
“I know enough about the processes and history to comment.”
That is like saying: “I know enough about military history that I can tell you why the Heike lost the battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185, even though I have never heard of the Heike or that battle and I do not have a clue where or how it was fought.” General knowledge of process and history tells you NOTHING about the specifics of these experiments. You cannot know anything about how the experiments are done, or whether they were done well or poorly, or what they mean, except by reading about them. What you are telling me is analogous to someone claiming that the Heike lost because they were using elephant cavalry on the open plains and the Klingons struck back with force field weapons.
”>> You can read the papers I have written and judge whether I am qualified.
>> See my reviews of McKubre and Miles.
If you haven't performed experiments and you don't do theory, what kind of papers can you write? Literature reviews?”
Let me repeat: I suggest you read my reviews of McKubre and Miles. You will see what I understand, and to what extent.
”>> You seem to know little or nothing about it.
Perhaps from your perspective.”
No, in absolute terms. My perspective has nothing to do with it. I am pretty sure that if I gave you a multiple choice quiz on cold fusion, you would come back with the equivalent of elephant cavalry on the plains of Shimonoseki. In science and military history there are actual fact and figures, and if you don’t know them, you know nothing.
”I'm not debating that experts didn't repeat them.”
Experts are the only ones who repeated them. Only an expert can do it. It is like doing open heart surgery.
“I'm saying that most of the people I had contact with, could not repeat the results. 20 hits and 80 misses is a problem.”
I have no clue whether these 80 misses are a problem or not. You would have to tell me: Who are these people? What experiments did they do? How and in what sense did they “miss”? For all I know they did the experiment completely wrong, and their failures mean nothing. I know of many attempts at cold fusion that mean about as much as an attempt to catch fish with a rod and reel cast into a ditch full of sand and rocks.
“>> My opinion is not based on theory. Cold fusion is not based on theory.
>> It is based on experiments, which I do understand.
That's part of the problem, cold fusionists keep repeating the mantra "experiment trumps theory" but then use theory to explain away things that do not work.”
They do not use theory to explain things away. They use conventional chemistry and electrochem to show errors in the experiments.
”Null results rarely publish. You claim they did the experiment wrong. Why would they do it wrong? Were they too stupid? Bad experimentalists? Axe to grind?”
In nearly every case, they did the experiment wrong. There must be hundreds of ways to do cold fusion wrong.
”Tell ya what, you forward one paper for me to read in your area, and I'll study it up.”
One paper? I do not think you can judge cold fusion by reading one paper. I suggest you read a bunch of papers by Fleischmann, Miles, McKubre or Storms. I guess you could start here:
www.lenr-canr.org/acro...
“And I'll send you one paper in your area and you can study it up so that we can communicate properly, and then discuss. Deal?”
I do not see why I should become familiar with your area. My knowledge or ignorance of your subject matter has nothing with this discussion. In fact, I have nothing to do with any of this. I did not perform or publish any of this research. I have made no claims. You should not personalize the discussion.
”If you do nothing else, answer this one question: With all of the areas of physics research, why do cold fusion and cosmology seem to have so many "groupies"?”
Gee. I do not know why it “seems” that way to you. Perhaps it is your imagination. The fact that it “seems” that way has no bearing on the experimental results. How “it seems” might be a fit subject for a social scientist or a journalist, or a psychiatrist, but it has no connection to calorimetry or electrochemistry. Asking me to explain why “it seems to Mike Wofsey that there are groupies” makes roughly as much sense as asking a newspaper reporter to explain how a flow calorimeter works.
”Why do I always seem to get into debates about cold fusion, but not fluid mechanics?”
You have not been debating cold fusion. As far as I can tell, you know nothing about that subject. You have been making up random notions (or reading them on the internet) and asserting that these notions have some connection to cold fusion. They do not. All this stuff about “household chemicals” and “lowering the internuclear distance or having a lepton mediator” has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with any published cold fusion experimental technique or result. You will not find a “lepton mediator” in any of the 600 papers I have uploaded. I suggest you stop dealing with your imaginary version of cold fusion, and turn instead to the real thing.
Elsewhere you wrote:
“We all know that results trump theory. But if your results violate the theory, then we're not just going to give 100% trust without verification.”
Verification in experimental physics is called “replication.” When 200 labs repeat a result that makes it as verified as anything can be. There is no other or better way to verify it.
“Your idea of verification is saying "this researcher showed that result." My idea of verification is that researcher making a public display of his/her work.”
My idea of verification is hundreds of peer-reviewed high signal to noise replications. That’s called “the traditional way to do science.” Your idea appears to be some sort of dog and pony show. Public displays of cold fusion would be meaningless, like a public display of the top quark experiment. I have seen many cold fusion experiments. It is about as exciting as watching paint dry. You can’t tell what you are looking at unless you have read the papers and you know how it works. Results often take days or weeks to materialize anyway.
You can see a public display of an autoradiograph at LENR-CANR.org, and lots of graphs of data. It looks the same as what you see in a lab. If you are not convinced by the graphs in the papers, you will not be convinced by the same kinds of graphs in the labs shown in real time.
- Jed
Thanks for the link to that paper from the SRI guys, I do remember it from long ago, but I'm giving it a fresh read, I'll get back to you later on this.
>> Only in the fact-free imagination of the skeptic is this not the case.
I'm not a skeptic. If I was, I wouldn't bother conversing with you. You're going to need to suspend disbelief a bit. When I correspond with you, I forget that you are more of a layperson, I apologize. "Household chemicals" does not mean stuff you find under your sink, it means components you can buy from a supplier or another lab, as opposed to having to manufacture under DOE control. For instance, when the mainstream community was trying to check the Red Mercury results, nobody had an access to irradiated mercury, and it took years to get it, since Russia wasn't releasing any of theirs. The chemicals that Fleicsh and Pons used were considerably easier to get, and did not require access to a thermonuclear reactor ... household chemicals.
>> I know why the experiments failed, in many cases.
Okay, we'll talk about that, let me read that paper.
>> Cold fusion does not require that.
Any fusion requires that the nuclei overcome the Coulomb repulsion, how else would the fuse?
>> That sounds like a rather crude method.
Crude? It works. There are real results from this method, and it was predicted long ago, while Fleischmann was still in learning basic math.
>> Nuclei do not resist fusing in the conditions of cold fusion metal lattices.
Are you saying they have somehow eliminated the Coulomb barrier? From my understanding of it, Cold Fusion operates on a similar pathway as cool fusion, but it doesn't require the lepton mediation, it uses the unit cell of the lattice to shield the EM field so that it can come close enough for the strong force to predominate just enough to allow some tunneling. But as I wrote, cool fusion is real, and I don't think that cold fusion is, because I can't see how any lattice could be strong enough not be deformed by the EM force, not even CIT's with the right chirality.
>> I do not know of any replications of his work. But of course there may be
>> experiments I have not heard about. Name one.
Here is a few, there are many more,
1. Measurements of an ortho-para effect in muon-catalyzed fusion in solid deuterium, Ishida, et. al., Phys Letters B, Volume 509
2. The first observation of muon-to-alpha sticking Kb X-rays in muon catalyzed D-T fusion, Nakamura, et. al., Phys Letters B, Volume 473
3. Method of determination of muon catalyzed fusion parameters in H-T mixture, V. M. Bystritsky, et. al., Euro Physics Journal D, Volume 26.
>> As far as I can judge from you comments, you have not read any papers
>> on cold fusion. Perhaps I am wrong. Why don’t you list one or two authors
>> you have read?
Other than theory (which you reject) and mention of nulls, there are no Phys Rev papers to read on Cold Fusion! It's a shame you reject the theory, because if you were willing to read some of it, you might find that papers by Kumar (The formation and decay of superheavy nuclei produced in 48Ca-induced reactions) and also by Dragi (New quantum mechanical tight bound states and ‘cold fusion' experiments) address many of the thoughts of the Cold Fusion community.
>> General knowledge of process and history tells you NOTHING about the
Look Jed, I'll read the hero paper you sent me, and get back to you. But general knowledge is enough to know when results don't smell right.
>> Let me repeat: I suggest you read my reviews of McKubre and Miles.
>> You will see what I understand, and to what extent.
Okay, okay. Link?
>> I have no clue whether these 80 misses are a problem or not. You would
>> have to tell me: Who are these people? What experiments did they do?
I thought you listed some of them at the beginning of this article.
>> For all I know they did the experiment completely wrong, and their
>> failures mean nothing.
How could so many people do it wrong? Any ideas?
>> In nearly every case, they did the experiment wrong. There must be
>> hundreds of ways to do cold fusion wrong.
Okay, so you're saying it's very difficult to do right, and Fleischmann and Pons were not consulted when researchers got null results?
>> I do not see why I should become familiar with your area.
Why would I want you to read a paper in my area? Do you suddenly have an interest in Collision Induced Absorption?
Here is a beautiful paper for you, it's very readable.
prola.aps.org/abstract...
>> You have not been debating cold fusion. As far as I can tell, you know
>> nothing about that subject. You have been making up random notions
>> (or reading them on the internet)
I wrote before, I followed Cold Fusion from the beginning. I haven't looked at it recently, so I don't know about new results.
>> All this stuff about “household chemicals” and “lowering the internuclear
>> distance or having a lepton mediator” has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do
>> with any published cold fusion experimental technique or result.
How are you going to have fusion if you can't overcome the Coulomb barrier? Of course the internuclear distance needs to be reduced to allow the strong force to dominate. Hot, cold or cool, fusion is still fusion, right?
>> You will not find a “lepton mediator” in any of the 600 papers I have
>> uploaded.
Okay, then how do they get the nuclei close enough to fuse? Lepton mediation is an understood process, so is the hot fusion process. I can't imagine that none of your 600 papers mentions mediation by leptons, that is almost too fantastic to believe since this is the only confirmed way of doing it. Leptons are either electrons (which won't do the job) or muons (which will) or taus (which might, but are too hard to make) or possibly neutrinos (which is very, very unlikely, and we have no way to test).
>> I suggest you stop dealing with your imaginary version of cold fusion,
>> and turn instead to the real thing.
Until I got into the conversation with you, there was no such thing as cold fusion, there was only Cold Fusion, that little section of science where researchers eschewed general peer review for fear for being told that their results were actually cool fusion, conventional quantum effects, or error. You're telling me something else, and I'm endeavoring to keep an open mind.
>> My idea of verification is hundreds of peer-reviewed high signal to noise
>> replications. That’s called “the traditional way to do science.” Your idea
>> appears to be some sort of dog and pony show.
That "dog and pony show" might be the only chance for these cold fusionists to being their field back into the light. If you're not getting results in Physical Review or you're not getting mainstream referees, then you have a fringe science, it's the truth, sorry. And although you might think that having hands-on access to an apparatus is as exciting as watching paint dry, I am sure there are several electrochemists that would find it fascinating.
As I wrote, I'll get back to you on the paper.
“>> Nuclei do not resist fusing in the conditions of cold fusion metal lattices.
Are you saying they have somehow eliminated the Coulomb barrier?”
Well, Bockris called it a shibboleth. I wouldn’t know, but cold fusion is nothing remotely like plasma fusion. Apparently particles in metal lattices overcome the Coulomb barrier much more easily than plasma fusion particles do.
“From my understanding of it, Cold Fusion operates on a similar pathway as cool fusion, but it doesn't require the lepton mediation, it uses the unit cell of the lattice . . .”
I do not know enough about theory to comment. However, cold fusion is not based on theory; it is based on experiments, mainly in calorimetry. I do know how calorimeters work, having built them. Niels Bohr described an expert as “one who has already made all possible mistakes.” Since I made all of the mistakes listed in chapter 2 of my e-book (and many others) I suppose that would make me an expert in calorimetry.
“Here is a few [Jones replications], there are many more,
1. Measurements of an ortho-para effect in muon-catalyzed fusion in solid deuterium, Ishida, et. al., Phys Letters B, Volume 509
2. The first observation of muon-to-alpha sticking Kb X-rays in muon catalyzed D-T fusion, Nakamura, et. al., Phys Letters B, Volume 473”
Ah, that is his earlier work. Yes, that was replicated. His 1989 cold fusion results have not been, to my knowledge. Especially not the so-called “mother earth soup” approach.
“Look Jed, I'll read the hero paper you sent me, and get back to you. But general knowledge is enough to know when results don't smell right.”
Your gut feeling is not a valid scientific metric. You have to cite an experimental error in the calorimetry, mass spectroscopy or some other aspect of the work. Cold fusion researchers cannot address, argue with, or falsify your intuition.
Throughout history people have rejected unexpected new results because they had a gut feeling the results did not “smell right.” Sometimes the results turned out to be right, and sometimes wrong, but if you look back at the rejections based on the smell test you will find it correlates only with novelty, not with the success or failure of the claim. People rejected incandescent lighting, airplanes, lasers and countless other things. It is always a good bet to reject a new claim, because most new claims turn out to be wrong, and that is why most people intuitively feel that a claim is probably wrong. It is like having an intuitive sense that the weather in Atlanta this week will be hot and muggy.
“>> Let me repeat: I suggest you read my reviews of McKubre and Miles.
>> You will see what I understand, and to what extent.
Okay, okay. Link?”
Look in the main index under Rothwell. (The e-book I reference above is “Cold fusion and the Future” which you can read in English, Japanese or Portuguese.)
“>> I have no clue whether these 80 misses are a problem or not. You would
>> have to tell me: Who are these people? What experiments did they do?
I thought you listed some of them at the beginning of this article.”
If you are talking about these people then I suggest you read the Storms book, which describes many of the mistakes they made. Briefly, they did not do the electrochemistry right or confirm that the cathodes were highly loaded and producing heat before looking for particles.
“>> For all I know they did the experiment completely wrong, and their
>> failures mean nothing.
How could so many people do it wrong? Any ideas?”
The reasons are clearly spelled out by Storms and elsewhere in the literature.
So many people did it wrong because they did not understand how to do it right. They knew little about electrochemistry. If hundreds of high energy plasma physicists were to try to clone a sheep, I guarantee they would do that wrong too. They should have consulted with electrochemists, especially with the ones who were successfully replicating the experiment at that time. For that matter, if a hundred electrochemists were to try build a Tokamak, they would get nowhere.
>> In nearly every case, they did the experiment wrong. There must be
>> hundreds of ways to do cold fusion wrong.
"Okay, so you're saying it's very difficult to do right, and Fleischmann and Pons were not consulted when researchers got null results?"
Fleischmann says he wasn’t. I expect he would have given them the correct Johnson-Matthey Pd-Ag hydrogen filter alloy if he had been. (He gave out lots of samples. As Miles demonstrated, the success rate for that material was 100%, and it is close to zero for ordinary palladium, which is what you would call a "household chemical" I suppose.) I do not see any electrochemists listed in most of these papers, or any mention of loading, OCV, material preparation, or any of the other things electrochemists do, and no mention of calorimetry.
>> I do not see why I should become familiar with your area.
Why would I want you to read a paper in my area?
Not at all, thanks.
“How are you going to have fusion if you can't overcome the Coulomb barrier?”
That is a theoretical issue of no interest to me. It is obvious that we do, in fact, have fusion, and that it can produce heat and power density high enough for practical applications. I couldn’t care less about how or why it works theoretically.
“Until I got into the conversation with you, there was no such thing as cold fusion, there was only Cold Fusion, that little section of science where researchers eschewed general peer review . . .”
They have NEVER eschewed peer review. This is your overactive imagination at work again. I suggest you take a deep breath and stop inventing scurrilous falsehoods about researchers you know nothing about. Believe me, they are sick and tired of people like you.
“That "dog and pony show" might be the only chance for these cold fusionists to being their field back into the light. If you're not getting results in Physical Review or you're not getting mainstream referees, then you have a fringe science, it's the truth, sorry.”
So, Physical Review is always right and it defines the mainstream, whereas J. Electroanal. Chem. and the Jap. J. Applied Physics are “fringe science”? We can resolve any academic dispute merely by asking the editors at Physical Review and maybe Nature to decide for us, kind of like the Pope. We don’t need to worry about replications, evidence, the work of thousands of scientists or any of the rest of it. Just let these editors decide everything for us! Would that be religion or science?
“And although you might think that having hands-on access to an apparatus is as exciting as watching paint dry, I am sure there are several electrochemists that would find it fascinating.”
I suggest you tell them to read the literature. Unfortunately, there are not many working apparatuses to go see these days. Unfortunately, most of the researchers who used to do cold fusion are retired or dead.
- Jed
He called the Coulomb barrier a "shibboleth"? I can't imagine anyone would say that, the barrier is what gives the shape of matter, in everything from desks to marshmallows to our own loved ones. Is he implying that "Coulomb barrier" is a concept that doesn't mean anything out of theoretical circles?
>> I wouldn’t know, but cold fusion is nothing remotely like plasma fusion.
The Coulomb barrier has to be navigated for cool fusion as well. It's one of those absolutes in life.
>> Apparently particles in metal lattices overcome the Coulomb barrier
>> much more easily than plasma fusion particles do.
Maybe, if the lattice is able to shield the particles, and thus reduce the internuclear distance to allow tunneling. That's the mechanism of cool fusion, except instead of the metal lattice, it's a lepton, usually a muon.
>> I do not know enough about theory to comment. However, cold fusion is
>> not based on theory; it is based on experiments, mainly in calorimetry.
An understanding of the theory is necessary or else, there is no way to interpret the results.
>> Ah, that is his earlier work. Yes, that was replicated. His 1989 cold fusion
>> results have not been, to my knowledge. Especially not the so-called
>> “mother earth soup” approach.
I didn't know that he ever did anything but cool fusion, would you please supply a reference.
>> Your gut feeling is not a valid scientific metric. You have to cite an
>> experimental error in the calorimetry, mass spectroscopy
Okay, I read the paper, it was interesting, and very well-written. I have a question though ... they reported that excess power was reported after an observation of several hundred hours. But since there doesn't seem to be any accompanying spectroscopy or chemical analysis, how can they conclude that the extra heat is not the result in a chemical change in the electrolyte? And they didn't mention how they kept track of the energy input. If the measuring span is on the order of 10^6 seconds, even a tiny variation in current in the reaction vessel versus the control. In this case, he mentions that the control rules out instrumental error, but I can't see how he can conclude that since the control is light water that obviously presents a different loading to the same current source. On the scale of 10^6 seconds, what would a variation of milliwatts mean?
But if you simply assume the best, which I'm willing to do, and then look at figures 4 and 5, it seems that the excess energy could be taken as being above the approximately 10eV per atom with outer-shell electron transactions, that differentiates chemical from nuclear activity. But it doesn't eliminate reactions from heavy elements with inner-shell electron transactions. Unfortunately, this research doesn't examine output gases, so we have no way of knowing.
>> Look in the main index under Rothwell. (The e-book I reference above
>> is “Cold fusion and the Future” which you can read in English, Japanese
>> or Portuguese.)
I'm not sure which one, would you provide the link to the paper that you wrote on the subject that you would like for me to read?
>> That is a theoretical issue of no interest to me. It is obvious that we do,
>> in fact, have fusion, and that it can produce heat and power density high
>> enough for practical applications. I couldn’t care less about how or why it
>> works theoretically.
It's important to have a rudimentary grasp of what's happening, if not just to be able to refute the physicist who suggests that the extra energy may be an inner-electron reaction. The paper that you supplied -- assuming all of the date is correct -- is not convincing to me. Perhaps you have a better paper of which you can forward a link?
>> They have NEVER eschewed peer review.
Please understand, in many areas of physics, research seek out people that will be most critical to their work, they look for people that have the most critique to offer. The SRI paper you sent to me needed some of that critical review I think, it was a very ambitious experiment that needeed some spectro data.
>> This is your overactive imagination at work again.
It's not my imagination. If the authors and journal sought the most critical referees, these results would be in mainstream journals, not sector-specific journals. Certainly the subject matter is of interest to all right?
>> Believe me, they are sick and tired of people like you.
That's too bad. Because in my original research in colloids I wish there were more people like me, people willing to actually give results as critical analysis as possible. The doubters and skeptics are a scientist's best friend, because those are the ones that find the holes.
>> So, Physical Review is always right and it defines the mainstream,
It definitely defines the mainstream, yes.
>> whereas J. Electroanal. Chem. and the Jap. J. Applied Physics are “fringe
>> science”?
Definitely NOT, those are two excellent journals. But they are specific to certain research areas. Scientists should endeavor to make their results as widely available as possible.
>> We can resolve any academic dispute merely by asking the editors at
>> Physical Review and maybe Nature to decide for us
The editors don't decide anything other than scheduling and coordination there, the debate and question is all done by the referees, who do not work for the journals.
>> Unfortunately, most of the researchers who used to do cold fusion are
>> retired or dead.
They just couldn't make it work well enough for commerce huh? Sounds like cool fusion and hot fusion to me. But you have to admit, those thin film scientists sure made their science work ... amorphic photovoltaic panels are turning into a huge success.
"[Bockris] called the Coulomb barrier a "shibboleth"... I can't imagine anyone would say that . . ."
Bockris boldly says and does all kinds of things most people can't imagine. That's how he & Fleischmann re-wrote the books on 20th century electrochemistry. (Literally.)
". . . the barrier is what gives the shape of matter, in everything from desks to marshmallows to our own loved ones. Is he implying that "Coulomb barrier" is a concept that doesn't mean anything out of theoretical circles?"
Something like that, I guess. Like luminiferous ether, which was supposedly was part of everything from desks to marshmallows, but it turned out the stuff does not exist. Or perhaps he would say the barrier is overrated, and much easier to penetrate than previously believed.
"The Coulomb barrier has to be navigated for cool fusion as well. It's one of those absolutes in life."
Or perhaps not, as the evidence indicates.
"I didn't know that he ever did anything but cool fusion, would you please supply a reference."
See the LENR-CANR library under “J.”
"Okay, I read the [McKubre] paper, it was interesting, and very well-written. I have a question though ... they reported that excess power was reported after an observation of several hundred hours. But since there doesn't seem to be any accompanying spectroscopy or chemical analysis, how can they conclude that the extra heat is not the result in a chemical change in the electrolyte?"
I assume you mean the paper by McKubre et al. This did not cover spectroscopy; that was discussed elsewhere. We know that a chemical change cannot be the cause of this heat for two reasons: 1. there is no chemical fuel in the cell, and no ashes found after the reaction; 2. the heat far exceeds the limits of chemistry. Your computation, below, is incorrect.
"And they didn't mention how they kept track of the energy input. If the measuring span is on the order of 10^6 seconds . . ."
Are you suggesting they only measure the input power once every 11 days? This is off-the-shelf, standard equipment that measures power thousands of times a second.
"But if you simply assume the best, which I'm willing to do, and then look at figures 4 and 5, it seems that the excess energy could be taken as being above the approximately 10eV per atom . . ."
I do not know how you computed 10 eV per atom. Per atom of what? Palladium? D2O? Energy should be compared to the mass of Pd, because the only possible chemical fuel in the cell is the hydride. I am not going to try to convert units into eV because I am bound to lose track of a few orders of magnitude so . . . Let’s do this the easy way.
Figure 4 shows about 1 W of excess power from hour 1350 to 1530, 180 hours, or 648,000 seconds. That’s ~648 kJ. The cathode is Pd, 0.3 cm diameter * 5 cm, so that’s 0.35 cc, or cm^3 if you insist on NIST notation. Pd density is 12.02 g/cm^3, so that’s 4 g (0.04 mole). Right? Pretend that is 4 g gasoline and the cell is full of oxygen. (Gasoline is the most energy dense common chemical and it produces ~4 eV per atom I believe.) It would produce 168 kJ. So this produce 3.9 times more energy than a chemical cell with an equivalent mass of fuel, and of course there is no chemical fuel in this cell.
You could pretend Pd was fully loaded at first and all of the D escaped and burned. They monitor loading, and they know this did not happen, but suppose it did. The heat from that reaction would be 5 kJ (0.02 mole D2O * 285,800 J/mole heat of formation).
Bear in mind that other samples of Pd of this size have produced hundreds of megajoules in uninterrupted reactions, without consuming even 1 mg of chemical fuel or producing 1 mg of chemical ash, and you will understand why researchers are confident that this is not a chemical reaction.
"Unfortunately, this research doesn't examine output gases, so we have no way of knowing."
There are no output gases. It is a closed cell. It ends up the same way it starts. Of course there is helium in the headspace and a little in the cathode, but it is rather difficult to capture.
">> Look in the main index under Rothwell. (The e-book I reference above
>> is “Cold fusion and the Future” which you can read in English, Japanese
>> or Portuguese.)
I'm not sure which one, would you provide the link to the paper that you wrote on the subject that you would like for me to read?"
Look under “R” and read whatever appeals to you. We have an extensive indexing system with Abstracts so that I do not have answer questions like this from 900 readers per day.
">> I couldn’t care less about how or why it
>> works theoretically.
It's important to have a rudimentary grasp of what's happening . . ."
It isn't important to me. Anyway, my impression is that nobody knows what is happening on the atomic level. We know only that a nuclear reaction is occurring.
". . . if not just to be able to refute the physicist who suggests that the extra energy may be an inner-electron reaction."
Anyone can refute that.
"The paper that you supplied -- assuming all of the date is correct -- is not convincing to me. Perhaps you have a better paper of which you can forward a link?"
You have to read dozens of papers. This is experimental science. There is no Eureka answer in one paper. The totality of the evidence is compelling. Any one experiment or instrument reading from one experiment might be wrong. A person can always find a reason to doubt it, or invent a reason. But to imagine that thousands of results from hundreds of labs are all wrong is, as Mallove put it, “to stretch credulity to the breaking point -- to distort the meaning of scientific evidence to absurd limits.”
">> They have NEVER eschewed peer review.
Please understand, in many areas of physics, research seek out people that will be most critical to their work, they look for people that have the most critique to offer."
Please understand we are talking about some of the world's most elite scientists, Nobel laureates, Fellows of the Royal Society, distinguished Professor of this, distinguished Fellow of the Institute that. Please do not presume you can tell these people how to do science or where to seek critiques.
“It's not my imagination. If the authors and journal sought the most critical referees, these results would be in mainstream journals, not sector-specific journals.”
They are in mainstream journals, but not in the USA. Mainstream journals & institutions in this country are irrationally prejudiced against cold fusion. For example, F. Slakey, the Science Policy Administrator of the American Physical Society, wrote that cold fusion scientists are "a cult of fervent half-wits" "While every result and conclusion they publish meets with overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, they resolutely pursue their illusion of fusing hydrogen in a mason jar. . . . And a few scientists, captivated by [Fleischmann and Pons'] fantasy . . . pursue cold fusion with Branch Davidian intensity."
“>> So, Physical Review is always right and it defines the mainstream,
It definitely defines the mainstream, yes.”
So, it is never wrong? In all academic disputes in recorded history Physical Review has always been on the right side? We need not look at experimental evidence; we can trust their judgment in this matter?
“>> whereas J. Electroanal. Chem. and the Jap. J. Applied Physics are “fringe
>> science”?
Definitely NOT, those are two excellent journals. But they are specific to certain research areas.”
No they are not, Jap. J. Applied Physics Japan’s #1 physics journal. And there are plenty of others such Phys. Let. A., and also plasma fusion journals. In any case, you should not ignore the work of thousands of scientists over 19 years because some US journals refuse to print their papers. This is not a scientific attitude, to say the least.
“>> We can resolve any academic dispute merely by asking the editors at
>> Physical Review and maybe Nature to decide for us
The editors don't decide anything other than scheduling and coordination there, the debate and question is all done by the referees, who do not work for the journals.”
At Nature, the editors decide. In early 1989 not to publish any cold fusion papers, and they decided that the field should be crushed with “vituperation” and “ridicule” (their words, not mine). They decided that they would not read any papers themselves, they told me. They know nothing at all about the subject. Their reasons for denying it are irrational and unscientific. Some of them understand nothing about experimental science in general, as you can see from this appalling letter one of them sent a cold fusion researcher:
lenr-canr.org/Collecti...
(If you do not find several glaring errors in this you are not paying attention.)
“>> Unfortunately, most of the researchers who used to do cold fusion are
>> retired or dead.
They just couldn't make it work well enough for commerce huh?”
Right. That would take hundreds of millions of dollars. Plus, you have to have a modicum of academic freedom. In cold fusion, when researchers published positive results they were sometimes demoted to menial jobs, punished or fired. Also their experiments were sabotaged; horse manure was shoved into their campus mailboxes; they were savagely and personally attacked by the APS, the Washington Post, Nature, Scientific American, Time magazine and many others; subjected to witch hunts by university investigative panels; and in one memorable incident, to a congressional investigation looking for fraud in which the congressman demanded copies of personal correspondence going back years. And so on, and so forth. You will appreciate that it is difficult to do research in such adverse conditions. Being blackballed by Nature is the least of their problems.
"Sounds like cool fusion and hot fusion to me."
No, they have made far more progress toward commercialization working a shoestring than the hot fusion people have accomplished using ~$1 billion a year for 60 years.
- Jed
"For the thermodynamically closed and intentionally isothermal systems described here, output power was observed to be as much as 300% in excess of the electrochemical input power or 24% above the known total input power. When excess power was present, it was more typically in the range 5%-10%, in a calorimeter that was accurate to better than
+0.5%. The largest excess energy observed corresponded to 1.08 MJ, or 45.1 MJ/mol, or
~450 eV/atom normalized to the Pd lattice or to the deuterium in the palladium at a
loading of ~1."
- McKubre, M.C.H., et al., Development of Advanced Concepts for Nuclear Processes in Deuterated Metals. 1994, EPRI.
Same document, intro:
"Excess powers ranging between a few percent to ~350% were observed, measured to an accuracy of ~0.5%. These excess powers integrated to a total of ~0.1 to 1.1 MJ for a ~2.5 g (1/40 mole) palladium cathode. Thus, the excess heats ranged between 4 to 44 MJ/mole of palladium, which was well above the largest known heats of chemical transformation in this or any other metal. The largest heat of chemical transformation in palladium is to the bromide at 0.9 MJ/mole."
So there's your standard: 0.9 MJ/mole. Note that some cold fusion experiments have produced way more than this. For example, Roulette, T., J. Roulette, and S. Pons reported 294 MJ of excess power (150% excess) from a rod cathode 10 cm long, 0.2 cm diameter. That's, um . . . 3.14 cm^3, 38 g Pd or 0.35 moles. 840 MJ/mole, or on the order of 9,000 eV per atom if I have done my arithmetic right, which is unlikely. Anyway, it sure as hell isn't a chemical reaction, is it? Especially since, as I mention, there is not 1 g of chemical fuel or ash in the cell.
To put it another way: this 10 cm X 2 mm object radiated 101 W of heat for 30 days. Does that sound like a chemical reaction to you? Imagine a stick or lump of paraffin of that size, that burns producing roughly 101 W. If it burned for a month underwater, in the absence of oxygen, would you be telling me it might be a chemical reaction? Have you heard of the miracle of the Maccabees? Do you understand why ancient people considered that mythological event a miracle? Ancient people believed in all kinds of impossible stuff, such as people rising from the dead or candles burning for 8 days with 1 day of fuel. But at least ancient people had enough common sense to recognize the limits of a chemical reaction. Some modern scientists seem to have less common-sense based knowledge of physics than ancient people did.
- Jed
"For example, Roulette, T., J. Roulette, and S. Pons reported 294 MJ of excess power (150% excess) from a rod cathode 10 cm long, 0.2 cm diameter."
OOPS! I committed the unpardonable sin. It was a typo, your honor! I meant:
Pons reported 294 MJ of excess ENERGY (150% excess POWER) . . .
Good lord. My supervisor from 35 years ago would have had a fit.
- Jed
X pi X 10 cm =
0.314 cm^3 (sounds more like it), 3.8 g Pd . . . or on the order of 90,000 eV per atom.
Anyway, give or take an order of magnitude, who cares? It ain't chemistry.
Nobody should trust me to do arithmetic. Programming, Si. Avogadro's number, density times volume, hand calculator and paper, No.
- Jed
>> Something like that, I guess. Like luminiferous ether, which was
>> supposedly was part of everything from desks to marshmallows, but it
Comparing the Coulomb Force to Ether, is like comparing Gravity to Astrology. Even back in the Ether's heyday, there were plenty of people that knew it had to be b.s. due to it's ridiculous properties.
>> overrated, and much easier to penetrate than previously believed.
If it is so easy to penetrate, why would they need such a high-Z material as palladium or nickel to construct the unit cell?
>> See the LENR-CANR library under “J.”
Please, specifically which paper, It's confusing, because the old name for cool fusion was cold fusion. I'm interested in his work in the conventional kind of "cold fusion" where the Coulomb barrier is tunneled not by muons, but by the unit cell of the lattice.
>> This did not cover spectroscopy; that was discussed elsewhere.
Elsewhere, meaning with a different study, or did they publish their spectroscopic results with the same study but in a different place? How do they know if there is any helium within the electrodes if they didn't measure it? And why wouldn't they make such a relatively simple measurement after going to all of that trouble?
>> We know that a chemical change cannot be the cause of this heat for two
>> reasons: 1. there is no chemical fuel in the cell
Any chemical can be considered a 'fuel' if you can get more energy from dissociated it than it took to dissociate it.
>> and no ashes found after the reaction;
There is no visible ash from a stoichiometric reaction.
>> 2. the heat far exceeds the limits of chemistry.
How so? A regular chemical reaction yields something like 10 eV per atom, but that can be dramatically increased from inner electrons. Just ask yourself what the dissociation energy is of the second electron in a helium atom and you'll see that this amount of heat is within the scope of a non-nuclear reaction.
>> Your computation, below, is incorrect.
What computation and why is it incorrect?
>> Are you suggesting they only measure the input power once every 11
>> days? This is off-the-shelf, standard equipment that measures power
>> thousands of times a second.
No, why would you suggest that I would suggest such a silly thing? The difficulty of doing calorimetry over such a long period is in keeping track of the energy both in and out over such a long period.
>> I do not know how you computed 10 eV per atom. Per atom of what?
I estimated based on the mass of a typical electrode. Is there another way?
>> 168 kJ. So this produce 3.9 times more energy than a chemical cell with
>> an equivalent mass of fuel, and of course there is no chemical fuel in
>> this cell.
I have no way of checking your calculation since I don't have access to the original data and I'm not going to argue over someone else's data. But you're estimating something like 25eV per atom? How does that guarantee a fusion reaction? There are inner-electron reactions from dense metals with that energy. Isn't the dissociation energy of the second electon from helium about 28ev?
>> chemical fuel or producing 1 mg of chemical ash, and you will understand
>> why researchers are confident that this is not a chemical reaction.
Okay, where is the data then? Please supply a paper that shows an increase in helium in the cat/anode before and after. Isn't that the acid test?
>> Of course there is helium in the headspace and a little in the cathode,
>> but it is rather difficult to capture.
But not all that difficult to measure.
>> We know only that a nuclear reaction is occurring.
And the people that can explain the data in conventional, non-fusion terms are just skeptics to be ignored, right?
>> Anyone can refute that.
Go ahead, refute it. I am genuinely curious how you can rule out atypical chemical reactions.
>> You have to read dozens of papers.
A good paper has to stand alone, it needs to convince by itself.
>> But to imagine that thousands of results from hundreds of labs are all
>> wrong is, as Mallove put it, “to stretch credulity to the breaking point --
>> to distort the meaning of scientific evidence to absurd limits.”
Isn't that exactly what you're asking me to believe about that thousands of null results after Fleishman and Pons?
>> Please understand we are talking about some of the world's most elite
>> scientists, Nobel laureates, Fellows of the Royal Society, distinguished
>> Professor of this, distinguished Fellow of the Institute that. Please do not
>> presume you can tell these people how to do science or where to seek
>> critiques.
Big deal. A person's title is meaningless, it's the quality of their work that's important. If I have a question with anyone's research, I ask. My friends and I have found errors in all sorts of research ... skepticism is the engine of science, not adoring respect.
>> F. Slakey, the Science Policy Administrator of the American Physical
>> Society, wrote that cold fusion scientists are "a cult of fervent half-wits"
That wasn't very nice.
>> So, it is never wrong? In all academic disputes in recorded history
>> Physical Review has always been on the right side? We need not look
>> at experimental evidence; we can trust their judgment in this matter?
Physical Review is usually neither right nor wrong, it's just a vehicle for the authors. If the referees are in general agreement on a matter than the journal just goes along.
>> And there are plenty of others such Phys. Let. A.,
Would you mind forwarding a reference to the Phys Let. A. papers? I would like to read those. Thanks, I would really appreciate that, because I couldn't find them.
>> you should not ignore the work of thousands of scientists over 19 years
>> because some US journals refuse to print their papers.
Of course, agreed. But this is far outside of my research area, so the only way it's going to get my notice is if it is published in a mainstream journal, and since I don't live in Japan, Phys Rev is it. Would you go poking into Journal of Colloids to look up breaking news in colloids? Probably not.
>> No, they have made far more progress toward commercialization
>> working a shoestring than the hot fusion people have accomplished
>> using ~$1 billion a year for 60 years.
It all borders on boondoggle Jed. We should spend research money on research that will benefit society with as few side-effects as possible. Fusion energy -- in any form -- has the problem of nuclear waste. It also requires an elaborate infrastructure, which favors elite political structures, and is therefore not a healthy energy source in my opinion.
>> elsewhere:
From that same experiment?
>> ~450 eV/atom normalized to the Pd lattice or to the deuterium in the
>> palladium at a loading of ~1."
450 eV per atom? That is very, very unlikely to be a chemical reaction of high-Z, but I suspect that either that data or calculation is flawed because it is larger than the other published cold fusion events by a factor of ten (!)
>> arithmetic right, which is unlikely. Anyway, it sure as hell isn't a chemical
>> reaction, is it? Especially since, as I mention, there is not 1 g of chemical
>> fuel or ash in the cell.
9000 eV per atom is definitely not a chemical reaction. But it is also so large that it begs analysis. How much energy was put into the system? Did the cat/anodes show helium increase before and after? Is the 9000 eV per atom excess? How long was the test interval? If they're getting an excess 9000 eV per atom over the life of the interval for the standard mass of the cat/anode, we're looking at an energy source that is ready for commercialization right now, hell, it would blow everything else out of the water. Either someone made a very large error or someone is very, very bad at marketing their results.
Okay, I had a discussion with one of the old-timers here, and he set up a cold fusion test after the Pons/Fleischmann paper. He followed the paper precisely because that's the kind of researcher he is, I've known him for years and his technique and care is beyond reproach. He may have forgotten some of the details, but this is what he could remember:
His working electrode (cathode) was palladium, his anode was platinum. His solution was Lithium Hydroxide which was brought into solution with heavy water which was obtained at great expense from a reactor in Canada. He ran the setup for 5 weeks, and had radiation detectors completely around the reaction vessel to find anything anomalous. After 5 weeks, he detected nothing anomalous.
As an aside, after the null result on the cold fusion experiment, they still had heavy water that drained a huge chunk of their research budget. But he looked at nickel in water and in deuterium, and he found something that you wrote to Mark, that the nickel unit cell was as adept at absorbing hydrogen as the palladium. He was able to take the 'fulminated' nickel and watch it react in water. So even if cold fusion were to work, it wouldn't require platinum or palladium, nickel would probably work.
At least from a theoretical perspective, if the unit cell in palladium can allow tunneling of nuclei through the Coulomb Barrier of induced deuterium, then there is no logical reason why nickel would not work as well.
By the way Jed, I find this interesting partly because the concept of cold fusion relies on the unit cell of the metal lattice to bring nuclei close enough to tunnel through the Coulomb barrier. It may also tie up the shell electrons to lower the electromagnetic repulsion. Regardless, this is the same concept that Samuel Cohen used to describe "Red Mercury." He claimed that a molecular "box" was made with Mercury and Antimony which offers a unit cell of just the right size to hold onto a fissionable atom, which is 'mechanically' held inside of the unit cell "box". The Mercury-Antimony molecule, when chemically reacted then delivered the necessary energy -- and obviously symmetric -- to collapse the fissionable material. It's tough to ignore his hypothesis due to his pedigree of course, but lots of people say there is not enough energy to do it.
Luckily this is not my area of research so I don't need to stress it.
Have a good weekend.
"Elsewhere, meaning with a different study, or did they publish their spectroscopic results with the same study but in a different place?"
Different study, as I recall. It is difficult to do accurate closed cell calorimetry plus helium in one experiment, although the Italians do.
"How do they know if there is any helium within the electrodes if they didn't measure it?"
There is hardly ever any in the electrodes. It is in the gas. It is a surface reaction.
">> and no ashes found after the reaction;
There is no visible ash from a stoichiometric reaction."
I meant no chemical transformations. No products.
"The difficulty of doing calorimetry over such a long period is in keeping track of the energy both in and out over such a long period."
Not necessary for the whole run, although they do keep track of it. All you have to do is keep track of the input and output during an uninterrupted heat production event. That was 180 hours in McKubre’s paper that you discussed. It is not difficult to keep a calorimeter stable for a week. Roulette et al. was for 30 days. Still not a big challenge.
"I have no way of checking your calculation since I don't have access to the original data and I'm not going to argue over someone else's data."
It is in the paper. You can evaluate the calorimetry.
"Okay, where is the data then? Please supply a paper that shows an increase in helium in the cat/anode before and after. Isn't that the acid test?"
No, in the gas. Look at Miles, the Italians, and the McKubre replication of Arata and Case.
>> We know only that a nuclear reaction is occurring.
And the people that can explain the data in conventional, non-fusion terms are just skeptics to be ignored, right?
If you can explain hundreds of megajoules per mole as conventional chemistry, with no detectable chemical changes, write a paper and I will upload it. No skeptic has ever tried to "explain the data." They have published only three responses:
1. It is theoretically impossible and therefore the data is wrong.
2. There must be an experimental error (but they never say what it is, and no error could survive this many replications).
3. All 2000 cold fusion scientists are frauds, lunatics and criminals (so say the Washington Post, the APS and Scientific American.)
"Isn't that exactly what you're asking me to believe about that thousands of null results after Fleishman and Pons?"
There have not been thousands! That’s absurd. I know of only about 200, and I know why most of them failed.
">> And there are plenty of others such Phys. Let. A.,
Would you mind forwarding a reference to the Phys Let. A. papers?"
Go to the publications index and look it up under P. That’s why I have indexes. By the way, the database is not necessarily complete. I know of several papers I have not bothered to add.
">> McKubre listed the number of electron-volts per atom of palladium
>> elsewhere:
From that same experiment?"
As he said, that was his best case in 1994. Read the document.
>> ~450 eV/atom normalized to the Pd lattice or to the deuterium in the
>> palladium at a loading of ~1."
450 eV per atom? That is very, very unlikely to be a chemical reaction of high-Z, but I suspect that either that data or calculation is flawed because it is larger than the other published cold fusion events by a factor of ten (!)"
By 1994 there were plenty of others on that scale, and some, as I said, above 1000 eV per atom. If you think it is a data or calculation error, what error is it? “I think it is an unspecified mistake” is not a falsifiable argument. It can be said for any experiment ever performed, including ones that have been independently replicated hundreds of times, such as cold fusion.
"9000 eV per atom is definitely not a chemical reaction. But it is also so large that it begs analysis. How much energy was put into the system?"
I told you, 150% excess. In other words, 1.5 W out per 1 W in. It says right there. Read the paper. Anyway, input is not an issue. There are other papers with no input and 50 to 100 MJ output, in heat after death or with gas loading.
"Did the cat/anodes show helium increase before and after?"
Never heard of one that did.
"Is the 9000 eV per atom excess?"
Sure, that’s what is says. (If you believe my math.)
"How long was the test interval?"
It says right there in the paper! And I told you: 30 days.
"If they're getting an excess 9000 eV per atom over the life of the interval for the standard mass of the cat/anode, we're looking at an energy source that is ready for commercialization right now . . ."
Heck, you could get a million times that. The cathodes are not consumed. It’s the deuterium -- it converts into helium. The cathode is only a catalyst.
It isn’t ready for commercialization right now. That would take hundreds of millions of dollars.
But MJ/mole is not the issue. What you need is high power density and temperature equal to a fission reactor. (You don’t need combustion levels.) That was achieved by 1992, albeit in smaller reactions, not 100 W. There was never any question after that, that cold fusion is a potentially useful source of energy. If it can be done once at a few watts in the NRL or China Lake, there is no reason to think it cannot be massively scaled up. We just haven’t had the money to do it. A handful of 80-year-old guys puttering around with used equipment can’t accomplish that.
", hell, it would blow everything else out of the water. Either someone made a very large error or someone is very, very bad at marketing their results."
There is no chance they made an error. None whatever. Similar results, albeit at lower power, have been observed in hundreds of labs. The problem is not marketing. The problem is that when people achieve results like that, they get fired, and the program is torn to pieces by academic rivals who despise cold fusion. It is hardball politics. In this case the results were at Toyota, and the program was dissolved by a certain individual high in the Japanese government who is determined to keep Japanese industry from developing cold fusion. A first class jerk, well known to me. I do not believe there is a conspiracy to suppress cold fusion. They don’t hold secret meetings or anything like that, but powerful people make phone calls and budgets get cut and researchers fired.
Heck, I have met many of the top people out there gunning for cold fusion, such as Robert Park, Slakey, our friend in the Japanese gov’t, and the others. They are among the nastiest, stop-at-nothing political animals around. One of them told me in plain language (Japanese in this case) that he doesn’t give shit whether it is real or not; it isn’t going to disrupt the plasma fusion research budget or energy industry profits on his watch. Another, a former U.S. VP whose name sounds like bore or store or something like that told a U.S. cold fusion researcher: “This is too hot. We can’t touch it.” Meaning there was too much political opposition to allow a handful of federal researchers to do experiments. He wouldn’t risk even that much political capital. The guy has a reputation as an environmentalist, but I have zero respect for him.
"Okay, I had a discussion with one of the old-timers here, and he set up a cold fusion test after the Pons/Fleischmann paper. He followed the paper precisely because that's the kind of researcher he is, I've known him for years and his technique and care is beyond reproach. He may have forgotten some of the details, but this is what he could remember:
His working electrode (cathode) was palladium, his anode was platinum. His solution was Lithium Hydroxide which was brought into solution with heavy water which was obtained at great expense from a reactor in Canada. He ran the setup for 5 weeks, and had radiation detectors completely around the reaction vessel to find anything anomalous. After 5 weeks, he detected nothing anomalous."
I would have to have a lot more information than that to know what happened, such as where did he get the palladium, what alloy was it, how much did it load, what was OCV, and how did it look afterwards. See Storms “How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect” for a list of common problems and solutions.
I would suggest he pretest 10 or 100 cathodes at a time, by the way, to winnow out the 1% that will work. Otherwise you are looking at trial and error, which is to say 5 weeks * 100 cathodes, worst case.
But taking it from the top, I sure wouldn’t recommend heavy water from a reactor! That’s a crazy thing to put into a cold fusion cell. Do you mean a CANDU? I am astounded they gave him any. They told me the stuff is hundreds of millions of times too contaminated for the commercial market. Are you sure you don’t mean ordinary Ontario Hydro heavy water? (But I doubt that would bust his budget, at $1000/kg.)
By the way, that product often has bacteria growing in it, believe it or not. Proof of Darwinian evolution. Imagine a species evolving that quickly since 1940! Anyway, it fouls the electrodes and it remarkably difficult to kill. The method you use to kill it will likely screw up the experiment.
- Jed
"He ran the setup for 5 weeks, and had radiation detectors completely around the reaction vessel to find anything anomalous. After 5 weeks, he detected nothing anomalous."
That never works! That's a waste of time. Ordinary radiation detectors above ground have never detected an anomaly in cold fusion as far as I know. Sometimes underground (with low background) with super-deluxe detectors they catch something, but before you even look you have to confirm that the cell is producing excess heat. Otherwise you have no cold fusion effect and there is no point to looking for any other product.
There are other methods of detecting particles and x-rays quite different from this, such as sputtering palladium onto a beryllium window, using the Pd as the cathode, and putting a detector on the other side of the Be.
The experiment you describe is an example of treating cold fusion as if it were hot fusion. This works about as well as trying to make an airplane that flaps its wings like a bird. You have to adjust the method to deal with what nature has provided, not what you imagine the phenomenon should be.
- Jed
>> calorimetry plus helium in one experiment, although the Italians do.
Why is that difficult? You should be able to just stick your gas sensor in one of the unused ports.
>> There is hardly ever any in the electrodes. It is in the gas. It is a surface
>> reaction.
Wait a sec, how do you know it's a surface reaction? Do you have evidence to show it's a surface reaction? If you're talking about absorbing atoms into the metal lattice, and then bringing them close enough to tunnel through the barrier, then how could it be a surface reaction? There really are no closed unit cells on the surface, right?
Which brings up another question, on the calculations you supplied, to find the average energy per atom did you compute the working electrode activity based on surface or volume? Because my estimate (between 10 and 100 eV per atom) was based on volume. If you base it on surface, the average energy would increase dramatically.
>> I meant no chemical transformations. No products.
How do they know there is no byproduct if they didn't spectro or analyze the output gas?
>> Not necessary for the whole run,
I'm definitely no calorimetery expert, but isn't careful energy budgeting critical when you're dealing with electrolytes? In essence, it's a battery, right? But you did say that they kept track of it.
>> No, in the gas. Look at Miles, the Italians, and the McKubre replication of
>> Arata and Case.
If the reaction takes place in the unit cell, there should be helium in the unit cell too. I know that for a fact, because I saw an experiment where hydrogen (a smaller molecule) was mechanically held into the unit cell of nickel for weeks.
>> If you can explain hundreds of megajoules per mole as conventional
>> chemistry, with no detectable chemical changes, write a paper and I will
Once you hit that 500 eV per atom mark, it's pretty tough to explain in any terms other than either fission or fusion. But please understand, I've seen error that has propagated in an ultrasound study for over twenty years. And of course you know that hidden variables were prohibited for thirty years before John Bell found an error in the original proof. So when the theory is screaming one thing, and the data screaming something else, it's wise to stay skeptical. But still, given that, even if nuclei are not actually fusing -- something even you should keep as a 'remote' possibility in the back of your head -- there seems to be some very interesting physics happening. For instance, what if the unit cells of the lattice are able to tie up the shell electrons and allow inner electron reactions. That might lead to a metastable state that could rapidly release energy at some point. This concept of 'mechanically' holding onto atoms in the unit cell is something U.S. physics has not looked at nearly as carefully as the Russians and Japanese, and I think that's unfortunate because it could lead to new types of compounds.
>> There have not been thousands! That’s absurd. I know of only about 200,
>> and I know why most of them failed.
There has to be thousands, I personally know of about six, and I don't exactly get around too much. But remember, people don't publish null results, they bury them.
>> If you think it is a data or calculation error, what error is it?
Well, now I'm wondering about the comment you made about it being a "surface effect." If they calculated it as a surface effect, but it is actually a volume effect, then for even a small cat/anode, the number density of reaction sites could vary by a factor of a thousand. I'll bet it isn't a surface effect. I have experience with Kelvin barriers and other effects of surface features between 50 and 500 nm, and on the molecular scale, surfaces are like Hurricane Katrina, molecules just get ripped off and slammed in again, the only place that the fuel would be able to work down into the Coulomb barrier to tunnel would be in the unit cell, assuming the lattice could get the nuclei close enough or tie up enough EM force.
>> “I think it is an unspecified mistake” is not a falsifiable argument.
Agreed.
>> I told you, 150% excess. In other words, 1.5 W out per 1 W in. It says right
That wasn't the McKubre paper though, was it?
>> >> "Did the cat/anodes show helium increase before and after?"
>> Never heard of one that did.
To me, that's sort of a problem. Do you know of anyone that checked?
>> There is no chance they made an error. None whatever.
Nobody is every willing to say that Jed. There is never such a thing as 'no error' unless The Almighty himself was down here working in a lab. Humans make all kinds of mistakes, that's the beauty of science.
>> but powerful people make phone calls and budgets get cut and
>> researchers fired.
I look at this two ways ... I think this field is worthy of research and worthy of funding because fusion or not, there seems to be some important physics happening. At the same time, I think that any nuclear energy (hot fusion, cold fusion or fission) is an unsustainable energy source due to the waste products and societal costs. That's not to say it isn't better than coal or gas, it probably would be, but I think it's better for us to hold our with our current technology as long as possible until we can make the jump to a truly sustainable, clean energy source with low societal costs.
>> I would suggest he pretest 10 or 100 cathodes at a time, by the way, to
>> winnow out the 1% that will work. Otherwise you are looking at trial and
>> error, which is to say 5 weeks * 100 cathodes, worst case.
Interesting, so you're saying it only works for a handful of cat/anodes? Have you done electron microscopy of the cathodes that do work and those that don't so you can qualify why this happens? This is another push toward the volume-rather-than-sur... effect, I've seen this happen with STM, based on the relative heights of the tip, it could be that if you're only getting about 5% workable cathodes out of the bunch, it suggests a bulk defect of some kind. In this case, the bulk defect might allow the water to the safe-haven of the unit cells. Think of it as a harbor with plenty of safe places to moor a ship, as opposed to open coastline. If you look at all the coastline, you only get about 1 to 3% harbor.
>> Are you sure you don’t mean ordinary Ontario Hydro heavy water? (But I
>> doubt that would bust his budget, at $1000/kg.)
Perhaps, I'll ask him next time I see him. He's a hockey fan like me, so we usually talk hockey for a half hour before getting around to physics. I'm really going to miss him when he goes back to Canada. I suspect you have the same feelings about the 'old guard' you know as well.
>> By the way, that product often has bacteria growing in it, believe it or not.
>> Proof of Darwinian evolution. Imagine a species evolving that quickly since
>> 1940! Anyway, it fouls the electrodes and it remarkably difficult to kill. The
Incredible! I never knew this.
>> That never works! That's a waste of time. Ordinary radiation detectors
>> above ground have never detected an anomaly in cold fusion as far as I
Why? If you characterize the vessel, gaskets, and background, why wouldn't you be able to screen an increase in neutron flux. The below ground ones you mention might be sensitive enough for neutrino detection, but why bother with neutrinos? If they're pulling 1000 eV per atom, that should produce a measurable neutron flux.
>> The experiment you describe is an example of treating cold fusion as if it
>> were hot fusion.
Neither of them were high energy physicists, they were low-energy and EM physicists, I trust they understood Fleisch and Pons well enough to set it up. Of course, like I said, error is part of life, so who knows?
One other thought about a possible (desirable) bulk defect in the cathode ... it's possible that the surface tension of the water in an area with negative curvature is enough to force the water into the unit cell. On the other hand, an area with positive curvature (which is most of the area on the outside of a well-polished cathode) wouldn't allow the necessary surface free surface energy of the water interface to force its way into the unit cells.
Of course, surface tensions only exist at interfaces, so it would be a new calculation to find where the Kelvin barrier is between heavy water and nickel or platinum.
Can you get hold of some TEM or SEM images of both effective and ineffective cathode tips, this would confirm or disprove this hypothesis.
Think of it like this ... a particularly spry kid can climb up a narrow hallway by forcing his feet and back against opposite walls, but he can't do that on an open wall. Some crevasses at just the right width might allow the water to find a balance somewhere below its Kelvin barrier.
I'm guessing the barrier for that combination would be somewhere around a negative curvature of radius 100 nanometers.
“>> It is difficult to do accurate closed cell
>> calorimetry plus helium in one experiment, although the Italians do.
Why is that difficult? You should be able to just stick your gas sensor in one of the unused ports.”
It is hard to get the gas out of a closed cell and do accurate calorimetry. You can analyze it at the end of the experiment, but not so easily on-line as the experiment is progressing. An open cell is self-purging and better for this purpose, but the helium does not build up. Gas loaded cells are best for helium studies, I think. Arata is doing gas loading.
“>> There is hardly ever any in the electrodes. It is in the gas. It is a surface
>> reaction.
Wait a sec, how do you know it's a surface reaction?”
Mainly because the helium ends up in the gas. Also, transmutations and so on are mainly at surface levels.
“If you're talking about absorbing atoms into the metal lattice, and then bringing them close enough to tunnel through the barrier, then how could it be a surface reaction?”
I doubt it is anything as simple as “bringing them close together.” They remain farther apart in a lattice than in heavy water. Something more complex is going on, but I wouldn’t know what it is.
“There really are no closed unit cells on the surface, right?”
Enyo and some others have found evidence that electrochemical overpotential in certain conditions with 1.5 V can produce 10E47 atm of pressure across areas on the surface. These are atomic-scale areas.
“Because my estimate (between 10 and 100 eV per atom) was based on volume. If you base it on surface, the average energy would increase dramatically.”
The estimates are all based on total volume, but most people in the field assume it is a surface reaction and most Pd atoms do not participate. Fleischmann thinks it is a bulk effect. (He said some years ago.)
“>> I meant no chemical transformations. No products.
How do they know there is no byproduct if they didn't spectro or analyze the output gas?”
Of course they analyze the output gas. They analyze everything. That’s what most of the expense and effort of an experiment goes into.
“>> Not necessary for the whole run,
I'm definitely no calorimetery expert, but isn't careful energy budgeting critical when you're dealing with electrolytes? In essence, it's a battery, right? But you did say that they kept track of it.”
Yes, they keep track of it, but you don’t need the figures for the entire run. Just for the time when uninterrupted heat is produced, if that heat far exceeds the limits of chemistry. Anyway, no one has ever seen evidence of energy storage. That would be an endothermic reaction and cases where the exothermic reaction is longer than the initial loading period this endothermic reaction would have to be much larger than the exothermic reaction that follows. It would be readily apparent.
“But please understand, I've seen error that has propagated in an ultrasound study for over twenty years.”
An error of what magnitude, made by how many people? Are you seriously suggesting that hundreds of scientists cannot measure heat ranging from 0.5 W to 100 W? That every single measurement has been a mistake? They measured similar power levels with confidence in 1850. You are also suggesting that over a hundred laboratories have detected tritium, sometimes at 10 to 100 times background, occasionally at a million times background, but every single one of these was also mistaken?
“So when the theory is screaming one thing, and the data screaming something else, it's wise to stay skeptical.”
I regard that as pathological skepticism. If so many huge mistakes could be made by so many different researchers over 19 years, the experimental method itself would not work.
“There has to be thousands, I personally know of about six, and I don't exactly get around too much. But remember, people don't publish null results, they bury them.”
While there is no point in arguing about events we have no record of, but I doubt there were thousands of null experiments in cold fusion. I know of only a few hundred including several unreported ones.
In fact, in 1989 there were only a few hundred groups of people in the world capable of doing this experiment and as far as I know nearly everyone of them has done it and has succeeded. It is an extremely difficult experiment. Oriani, who is one of the world’s top electrochemists, told me that in his 50-year career (now 60 years) this was the most difficult experiment he ever replicated. The difficulties were obvious to these people from the moment they heard about it.
Measuring the effect is not difficult, but making it happen is.
“>> If you think it is a data or calculation error, what error is it?
Well, now I'm wondering about the comment you made about it being a "surface effect." If they calculated it as a surface effect, but it is actually a volume effect, then for even a small cat/anode . . .”
No, they don’t do that. You can read the papers and see they do not. No one knows exactly how much of the surface layer is participating, to what depth.
“>> I told you, 150% excess. In other words, 1.5 W out per 1 W in. It says right
That wasn't the McKubre paper though, was it?”
That was Roulette et al. McKubre reports up to 300% (3 times input).
“>> >> "Did the cat/anodes show helium increase before and after?"
>> Never heard of one that did.
To me, that's sort of a problem. Do you know of anyone that checked?”
Of course. They all check. I have never heard of one who found a lot. There is some. It is hard to get every bit out. You have to bake-out cathodes, and then finally dissolve them.
“>> There is no chance they made an error. None whatever.
Nobody is every willing to say that Jed.”
Sure they are! How many times do you think Boyle’s law has been confirmed in the laboratory? Do you think there has any possibility it is an experimental error? How about Ohm’s law? When Ohm’s law was first discovered, many people try to confirm that V = W/A, got it wrong, and published reports that it was not true. How likely is it that cloning mammals is an error, and Dolly the sheep was not actually a clone of her mother?
Do you suppose that every single cloned animal reported since Dolly was not actually a clone but just an animal that bears an uncanny resemblance to the parent, and in every case someone in the laboratory made a stupid blunder and mixed up the DNA samples? How likely is that?
Experiments have been widely replicated at high s/n ratios are NEVER in doubt.
“There is never such a thing as 'no error' unless The Almighty himself was down here working in a lab. Humans make all kinds of mistakes, that's the beauty of science.”
Thousands of experimentalists never make thousands of large mistakes for decades. (Repeatedly mistaking 0 W excess for 100 W excess would be the largest error in the history of calorimetry.) If our mental processes were that dysfunctional, we would have gone extinct long ago. That’s the beauty of evolution. To suggest that thousands of scientists would make elementary mistakes for 19 years without anyone noticing it is like suggesting that every hawk in the state of Pennsylvania will make mistakes and fail to catch a mouse for a month, and starve to death.
“At the same time, I think that any nuclear energy (hot fusion, cold fusion or fission) is an unsustainable energy source due to the waste products and societal costs.”
Cold fusion has no significant waste products. If all over energy came from cold fusion, it would produce less nuclear waste than a single coal-fired plant. (Coal fired plants spew far more radioactive garbage into the environment than uranium fission plants do.)
“>> I would suggest he pretest 10 or 100 cathodes at a time, by the way, to
>> winnow out the 1% that will work. Otherwise you are looking at trial and
>> error, which is to say 5 weeks * 100 cathodes, worst case.
Interesting, so you're saying it only works for a handful of cat/anodes?”
That is for off the shelf Pd samples from Tanaka Precious Metals Co. If you use the palladium engineered by Johnson Matthey for use in hydrogen filters, I expect nearly all of it will work. That’s what Fleischmann used and what he recommended, for obvious reasons.
“Have you done electron microscopy of the cathodes that do work and those that don't so you can qualify why this happens?”
Of course. But you do not even need a microscope in many cases. You can see with the naked eye why many cathodes fail.
“>> By the way, that product often has bacteria growing in it, believe it or not.
>> Proof of Darwinian evolution. Imagine a species evolving that quickly since
>> 1940! Anyway, it fouls the electrodes and it remarkably difficult to kill. The
Incredible! I never knew this.”
It is astounding. Cold fusion researchers in Italy discovered it and named Ralstonia detusculanense. See:
www.lenr-canr.org/acro...
“>> That never works! That's a waste of time. Ordinary radiation detectors
>> above ground have never detected an anomaly in cold fusion as far as I
Why? If you characterize the vessel, gaskets, and background, why wouldn't you be able to screen an increase in neutron flux.”
Who knows why? There is no significant increase, and that’s all there is to it.
In my opinion, cold fusion probably produces no neutrons directly, and only a few as a side effect of other reactions that it triggers. If it does produce them they are least 10E11 times fewer in number than with plasma fusion.
- Jed
If you're doing accurate calorimetry, I assume the gas products have to be analyzed as they come out. If they''re venting the cell, they can check for helium on the output.
>> Mainly because the helium ends up in the gas.
I thought you wrote they weren't generally checking for helium output. I misunderstood.
>> Also, transmutations and so on are mainly at surface levels.
What transmutations? What is your evidence for claiming they are on the surface?
>> I doubt it is anything as simple as “bringing them close together.” They
>> remain farther apart in a lattice than in heavy water. Something more
>> complex is going on, but I wouldn’t know what it is.
It may be complex, but assuming you're getting fusion, the end result is simple, that Coulomb barrier has to be reduced enough to allow tunneling for the Strong Force to take over for a tiny percentage of the nuclei. How is it reduced? That's the mystery, but the obvious candidates are reduced internuclear distance, directional shielding by the lattice, etc.. You wrote that they "remain farther apart in the lattice than in heavy water." What data do you have to support this statement, and what do you calculate the internuclear distance to be in the lattice? What is the chirality and unit cell distance in your cathode material?
>> Enyo and some others have found evidence that electrochemical
>> overpotential in certain conditions with 1.5 V can produce 10E47 atm of
>> pressure across areas on the surface. These are atomic-scale areas.
How did they measure 10^47 atmospheres? Check out this article I wrote on surface pressures: focus.aps.org/story/v1...
There was (is) a huge controversy in the field about that pressure, some say slightly above ambient, some say up to about 50 atmospheres. But measuring that pressure is difficult if not impossible, because when you the atomic force microscope in tapping mode, it can't differentiate the interface, it pushes the pressure fronts around rather than tapping the top. So I'm curious as to how they can measure that pressure. Is it an indirect measurement based on deformation?
>> Fleischmann thinks it is a bulk effect. (He said some years ago.)
If Fleischmann things it's a bulk effect, why do "most people" think it's a surface effect? What evidence do they have?
>> Of course they analyze the output gas. They analyze everything. That’s
>> what most of the expense and effort of an experiment goes into.
Ah, excellent. And what is the helium increase on a typical experiment?
>> at 10 to 100 times background, occasionally at a million times
>> background, but every single one of these was also mistaken?
There was not a tritium measurement in the paper you sent. Would you please send the link to a paper with the tritium measurement? Please don't tell me to look in the index, I would like to see what you consider to be a good experiment that measured the tritium and/or helium. I can't say anything without reading the paper.
>> I regard that as pathological skepticism.
You call it pathological skepticism, I call it "safe science."
>> few hundred including several unreported ones.
Did you know about the ones from the University of Alabama? The ones from CUNY? The one from Hunter?
>> this was the most difficult experiment he ever replicated. The difficulties
>> were obvious to these people from the moment they heard about it.
That explains a lot, because at the time, perhaps due to F&P's paper, it was perceived as something fairly easy to do. This was also at the time that "room-temperature" superconductor research was hitting its stride, and these experiments were considered easier to do than those, so I guess that explains what went wrong for many people. I would like to talk with someone who understand the theory with this though.
>> No, they don’t do that. You can read the papers and see they do not.
>> No one knows exactly how much of the surface layer is participating, to
>> what depth.
Again, how do they know it's the surface? What data indicates that it is a surface effect? This is a critical aspect, because surface is a population squared effect and volume is a population cubed effect. On the macroscopic scale the difference is enormous.
>> Of course. They all check. I have never heard of one who found a lot.
>> There is some. It is hard to get every bit out. You have to bake-out
>> cathodes, and then finally dissolve them.
Helium is nonreactive, you should just be able to grind the cathode apart and check for an increase. Would you link to a paper that measured the helium from the cathode?
>> Sure they are! How many times do you think Boyle’s law has been
>> confirmed in the laboratory? Do you think there has any possibility it is an
>> experimental error?
But there is no "law" to be confirmed with Cold Fusion, and there is no such thing as a Boyle's Law experiment that does not have some degree of error. Error is inherent, at it's core, it's a quantum effect and it is impossible to take a measurement without error. Of course, on the macro scale, the error can be negligible.
>> How about Ohm’s law? When Ohm’s law was first discovered, many people
Actually, that's not a law. Plenty of things violate "Ohms Law" all the time, like an incandescent light bulb. Ohm's Law only covers resistors that are Ohmic, and only then within a fairly narrow temperature range.
>> How likely is it that cloning mammals is an error, and Dolly the sheep
>> was not actually a clone of her mother?
Off the subject, but I don't understand the allure of cloning. Mother Nature's technique is far more advanced, she gathers together the best aspects of each cell and makes a new one, and with her method, the likelihood of DNA error is so much smaller.
>> Cold fusion has no significant waste products.
The containment facility is bathed with neutrons and becomes radioactive as surely as any fission plant. The difference between fission and fusion plants is that the former outputs waste, and the latter doesn't but after both are decomissioned, the containment is high-grade, fully-toxic nuclear waste.
>> If all over energy came from cold fusion, it would produce less nuclear
>> waste than a single coal-fired plant. (Coal fired plants spew far more
>> radioactive garbage into the environment than uranium fission plants do.)
Yeah, I know. But when coal plants are done, you can reuse the components, they aren't too hot to touch and they don't require containment in a miles-deep salt cavern.
>> Of course. But you do not even need a microscope in many cases. You
>> can see with the naked eye why many cathodes fail.
Why? Why do some work and some don't? What is the surface feature that allow some to work but not others?
>> Who knows why? There is no significant increase, and that’s all there is to
>> it. In my opinion, cold fusion probably produces no neutrons directly,
Fusion is fusion, plasma or otherwise, it produces neutrons. Perhaps Cold Fusion is actually a high-level effect but is actually not fusion then. That would explain a lot. Maybe they found something brand-new, and maybe they would get more traction if they stopped calling it 'fusion.' Howabout 'High-Z Reactor"?
Ok, there are a tremendous number of arguments that could be used to support Solar, and in particular, Silicon-based Solar, but I'll stick with one directly related to your article; Peak Oil.
You want to support thin films over Silicon, but that contradicts your peak-based reasoning.
Which is a stronger company in a post-peak world?
Would you bet on super-high-tech company depending on rare elements from the corners of the world, as well as incredibly specialized equipment and infrastructure for the development of their product; or would you rather support a company that uses well-known technology (silicon-based), and the second-most most abundant material in the Planet's crust (silicon) for the production of their product?
The particular Silicon-based company that I mention is LDK Solar. They're building the World's largest Polysilicon Factory in the World. They've got local supplies of raw Silicon to process. They even are buying their Ingot Crucibles from a Chinese Company right across the street, as opposed to ordering them from Europe or the US, as other companies do. Plan has LDK capable of producing 2 GW of Wafers per year after 2009 (much sooner than any cold fusion process will produce a GW). You can bet that if any company will be insulated from the problems of Peak-whatever, it's going to be LDK.
When you're talking about peak-resources, the obvious solution is to make best use of the most common of resources, as you well know by your assaults (deserved INO on FSLR for their Te dependency).
I don't know anything about LDK, do they own I.P. on the films they are producing?
By the way, you are 100% right on your analysis, you think clearly, and should consider finishing your physics education. Go for the Ph.D., there will be a lot of opportunity in research for nanophotonics and quantum dots. The efficiencies that we are currently seeing will be dwarfed by the next generation of photovoltaics. When we are able to confine the results of the photoelectric effect to 1 and 2 dimensions, I suspect PV efficiencies will rise above 50%.
“>> Also, transmutations and so on are mainly at surface levels.
What transmutations? What is your evidence for claiming they are on the surface?”
See Iwamura, Miley, Mizuno, Bockris. Depth profiles show the transmutations waning at lower depths.
>> Enyo and some others have found evidence that electrochemical
>> overpotential in certain conditions with 1.5 V can produce 10E47 atm of
>> pressure across areas on the surface. These are atomic-scale areas.
How did they measure 10^47 atmospheres?"
Not by direct measurements. If it happens, it would be on the atomic scale, literally a few molecules across, nearby surface protrusions. I don’t know much about this work. It was described in the Mizuno book that I translated, but I did not read original sources.
“>> Fleischmann thinks it is a bulk effect. (He said some years ago.)
If Fleischmann things it's a bulk effect, why do "most people" think it's a surface effect? What evidence do they have?”
Their evidence is helium in the gas, transmutations, loading mainly at the surface and so on. I would put it the other way around: I do not understand why Martin thinks it is a bulk effect. I don’t know if he still thinks so. I will ask him.
>> Of course they analyze the output gas. They analyze everything. That’s
>> what most of the expense and effort of an experiment goes into.
Ah, excellent. And what is the helium increase on a typical experiment?”
The amount depends upon the excess heat. Sometimes it accumulated for a long time, and sometimes it is a “snapshot” for 20 minutes or 2 hours or what-have you. In every case I know of, after the helium is carefully accounted for and flushed out of nooks and crannies, it comes to the same ratio as plasma fusion: 24 MeV/helium atom.
>> at 10 to 100 times background, occasionally at a million times
>> background, but every single one of these was also mistaken?
There was not a tritium measurement in the paper you sent. Would you please send the link to a paper with the tritium measurement? Please don't tell me to look in the index, I would like to see what you consider to be a good experiment that measured the tritium and/or helium."
Unfortunately some of the best papers in helium and tritium are not in the library because of copyright restrictions. For tritium in the early papers (which is mostly what we have), I think most people would cite Will and Cedzynska, or Bockris et al and the people at BARC. You can look up the indexes as easily as I can. For helium, see Miles (China Lake), McKubre, and the people using the enormous mass spec machine shown here:
lenr-canr.org/Experime...
“I can't say anything without reading the paper.”
True, but many people do, and you had a lot to say previously.
>> this was the most difficult experiment he ever replicated. The difficulties
>> were obvious to these people from the moment they heard about it.
That explains a lot, because at the time, perhaps due to F&P's paper, it was perceived as something fairly easy to do.
“Percieved” by people who knew nothing about the experiment and had no business guessing about it. I have never heard an electrochemist say that.
“Helium is nonreactive, you should just be able to grind the cathode apart and check for an increase. Would you link to a paper that measured the helium from the cathode?”
Mainly they don’t find it. Only a tiny bit. Arata’s latest papers is the exception, but that’s in the powder. My guess is that it comes off the surface of one particle and is trapped by another.
">> How likely is it that cloning mammals is an error, and Dolly the sheep
>> was not actually a clone of her mother?
Off the subject, but I don't understand the allure of cloning. Mother Nature's technique is far more advanced, she gathers together the best aspects of each cell and makes a new one, and with her method, the likelihood of DNA error is so much smaller."
I agree but it was an amazing accomplishment, and even if it has no practical application I am sure it will teach us much about biology.
Back on the subject, how much are you willing to bet that every single cloning experiment has been an experimental error? Do you really think that is possible? And do you seriously, really believe that people cannot measure 100 W with absolute confidence? All this talk about “noboby is ever certain in science” is pure B.S. in my opinion. There is nothing more certain than a replicated experiment. No human knowledge is more solidly based or more certain than what we learn of natural laws & phenomena by experiment. You can bet your life that calorimetry works. You do, in fact, bet your life on such things, every day, in a thousand different ways.
“>> Cold fusion has no significant waste products.
The containment facility is bathed with neutrons and becomes radioactive as surely as any fission plant.”
No, it isn’t. If cold fusion produced neutrons I would be dead, along with several hundred other people. Cold fusion does not produce a measurable level of neutrons. Cold fusion will not require a containment facility. If it works at all, you will be able to use it to power a heart implant. It does not matter what you think or what you predict – the experiments prove that there are no neutrons. Period. Full stop. You can’t argue with experiments.
“>> Of course. But you do not even need a microscope in many cases. You
>> can see with the naked eye why many cathodes fail.
Why? Why do some work and some don't? What is the surface feature that allow some to work but not others?”
The ones that do not work swell up, crack, or disintegrate. Or they are covered in filth. (I saw one with cat hairs galvanized onto the surface, in one memorable example.) See Storms, “How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect.”
>> Who knows why? There is no significant increase, and that’s all there is to
>> it. In my opinion, cold fusion probably produces no neutrons directly,
“Fusion is fusion, plasma or otherwise, it produces neutrons.”
No it doesn’t. You can’t overrule Mother Nature on this.
“Perhaps Cold Fusion is actually a high-level effect but is actually not fusion then.”
It is, because it fuses deuterons to form helium-4 and 24 MeV of heat. Most scientists I know say that makes it fusion. Perhaps you have some other definition.
- Jed
>> transmutations waning at lower depths.
Definitely, the deeper into the bulk material, the less likely the water can penetrate. But that still doesn't indicate a surface reaction, which is exactly that, a surface reaction, with an exponential decay past the skin. Combustion, for instance, is usually a surface reaction for obvious reasons, but I can't see how this could be.
>> True, but many people do, and you had a lot to say previously.
Based on past experience, but I can't comment on a paper I have not read yet. Incidently, do you have a link to a Jones' paper that is not of the muon-induced variety?
>> “Percieved” by people who knew nothing about the experiment and had
>> no business guessing about it. I have never heard an electrochemist
>> say that.
I never had the impression from F&P's paper that it was difficult, but I've seen that a lot, scientists often don't communicate the hard work that went into making something happen.
>> I agree but it was an amazing accomplishment, and even if it has no
>> practical application I am sure it will teach us much about biology.
Eh, there is something offensive about it to me. There is something inhumane about messing with DNA, even for plants. It's presumptuous to think we can improve upon nature.
>> You do, in fact, bet your life on such things, every day, in a thousand
>> different ways.
True, for instance in driving over a bridge. But incorrect assumptions can lead to vast sciences. The Earth-centered astronomy led to extremely complicated maths that simplified dramatically when they changed the assumption. Even today, there are very complicated perturbation systems that calculate the perihelion shift of Mercury so as to avoid using General Relativity.
>> No, it isn’t. If cold fusion produced neutrons I would be dead, along with
>> several hundred other people. Cold fusion does not produce a measurable
>> level of neutrons.
Okay, but the lepton numbers and energy still have to balance in the end. So what is the formula for the Cold Fusion process that you get in these cells? Instead of neutrons are you getting neutrinos and gamma rays? What radiation do they detect?
>> the experiments prove that there are no neutrons. Period. Full stop.
>> You can’t argue with experiments.
I'm not arguing. There are fusion cycles that don't release neutrons, like the carbon cycle, right? But you are working nowhere near those temperatures. And there are theoretical room-temperature fusion processes that don't release neutrons directly, instead balancing with alpha particles and protons.
But the problem here is that if I ask you about the formula, you then give me an answer that "experiment trumps theory." Scientifically, it's difficult to follow an argument where the well-behaved theory is used but the disagreeable theory is discarded. If you're not producing neutrons, then I would like to see just a simple input/output formula that accomplishes that. They should be able to provide that after all, since they are measuring alpha particles, gamma radiation and proton flux, right?
>> The ones that do not work swell up, crack, or disintegrate.
But I assume you mean they swell up, crack or disintegrate after the process. How can you tell before you charge them up?
>> No it doesn’t. You can’t overrule Mother Nature on this.
I'm open buddy, let's not overrule Mother Nature on this. Just show me the energy/mass balance. That's simple enough to just type in directly to this, without referring me to three papers in your index.
>> It is, because it fuses deuterons to form helium-4 and 24 MeV of heat.
>> Most scientists I know say that makes it fusion. Perhaps you have some
>> other definition.
That one is fine, but how does that balance? For instance, here is one that balances:
(deuterium + tritium) --> (Helium + neutron + 17.6 MeV)
Or if you want one that produces 24 MeV ...
4 H --> (helium + 2 positrons + 2 neutrinos + 24.7 MeV)
I'm not asking for anything top secret, I'm just curious about the balance.
Clearly, there has to be something that it is emitting that can measured other than the energy, right? (Obviously other than the neutrinos.)
I just had another discussion with the physicist that did the cold fusion experiments back in the 1990s and got the null result. I wanted to share the pertinent points with you ...
1) He is definitely a qualified, experienced electrochemist, and has published at least 30 papers in the Journal of Electrochem.
2) He felt the original F&P paper was dramatically lacking in necessary details.
3) He has an open mind to the possibility of researchers in Japan getting positive results with this.
4) He says he trusts the theoreticians on this, but also says that the theoreticians don't typically understand the electrochemistry.
5) He feels that the fundamental problem here is that the electrochemists don't want to learn the theory, and the theoreticians don't want to learn the electrochemistry.
6) He had an idea for an experiment that would more closely qualify if the process is happening or not, but it required more specialized equipment than he had. Specifically, he would make a hollow palladium negative electrode and let the solution infuse through it, and then measure for helium coming out through the top, from the center of the hollow electrode.
In the solution, there are loose protons, due to the high dielectricity of the solution, and these can 'filter' through the bulk material of the negative electrode if driven to do so by a voltage gradient. The question is, do these loose protons somehow react in the unit cell of the lattice, and if so, how?
“Okay, but the lepton numbers and energy still have to balance in the end. So what is the formula for the Cold Fusion process that you get in these cells?”
There is no formula. It is not known yet. The purpose of the research is to discover the formula.
"But the problem here is that if I ask you about the formula . . ."
You are asking the wrong person. Ask a theorist. Read theory papers.
“. . . you then give me an answer that "experiment trumps theory." Scientifically, it's difficult to follow an argument where the well-behaved theory is used but the disagreeable theory is discarded.”
Cold fusion is based on calorimetry, x-ray film and other instruments which, in turn, are based on thermodynamics and other well-established theories of physics and chemistry. The “disagreeable” theory in this case is a narrow range of plasma fusion theory, which may or may not have to be discarded. That remains to be seen. If we have to choose between plasma fusion theory on one hand, and the laws of thermodynamics and a large chunk of other 19th century theory on the other, I think it is more likely that the latter is correct. In other words, I think it is extremely unlikely that cold fusion researchers have uncovered a host of heretofore unknown reasons why static, flow, Seebeck and bomb calorimeters do not work; x-ray film does not register x-rays; and mass spectrometers do not work. I would say the chances of that are astronomically small, whereas the chances that a new form of aneutronic fusion has been discovered are high.
“If you're not producing neutrons, then I would like to see just a simple input/output formula that accomplishes that.”
I am sure everyone in the field would also like to see that. If research worked like it does in the movies no doubt we would have something like that. What you get in real life is a pile of conflicting evidence, some of it right, some wrong, and no magic touchstone to tell you which is which. As Segre said of Hahn and Meitner: “Their early papers are a mixture of error and truth as complicated as the mixture of fission products resulting from the bombardments. Such confusion was to remain for long time a characteristic of much of the work on uranium.” (Quoted by Mallove, p. 22)
“>> The ones that do not work swell up, crack, or disintegrate.
But I assume you mean they swell up, crack or disintegrate after the process."
Right. After electrolysis. The cold fusion process never begins.
"How can you tell before you charge them up?”
By various methods described by Storms, Cravens and in electrochemistry textbooks. For example, you can charge them to the beta phase (which is not difficult) and then observe the bubbles on the surface as they degas.
I recommend you build a machine to speed up and automate the process of characterizing palladium. Doing it manually sometimes takes six months to a year. A custom-designed machine could do it in a few days. This illustrates why cold fusion research should be funded: so that researchers will not be forced to spend years or decades doing work that can be done in a few days with proper equipment. Naturally, the equipment will cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. I have never heard of cold fusion experiment that cost less than $100,000. I cannot imagine how anyone ever got the idea that the research is “cheap” or “easy.” It is roughly as easy as making a computer chip, starting with sand.
“>> It is, because it fuses deuterons to form helium-4 and 24 MeV of heat.
>> Most scientists I know say that makes it fusion. Perhaps you have some
>> other definition.
That one is fine, but how does that balance?”
Figure that out and you will win a Nobel prize -- assuming the establishment someday admits that cold fusion is real. I am not optimistic that will happen.
- Jed
“2) He felt the original F&P paper was dramatically lacking in necessary details.”
I have met at least 250 other electrochemists who agree, including Fleischmann and Pons.
”3) He has an open mind to the possibility of researchers in Japan getting positive results with this.”
Why Japan in particular? Why not researchers at Los Alamos, China Lake, SRI, or BARC? Some of the Japanese researchers are pretty good, but they are not the only ones who have reported positive results.
”5) He feels that the fundamental problem here is that the electrochemists don't want to learn the theory, and the theoreticians don't want to learn the electrochemistry.”
Theory is not needed to confirm that cold fusion is real. You need only measure the excess heat far beyond the limits of chemistry, tritium, helium and so on. As some researchers put it:
"The calorimetry conclusively shows excess energy was produced within the electrolytic cell over the period of the experiment. This amount, 50 kilojoules, is such that any chemical reaction would have had to been in near molar amounts to have produced the energy. Chemical analysis shows clearly that no such chemical reactions occurred. The tritium results show that some form of nuclear reactions occurred during the experiment. . . . The main point of the tritium in this experiment is then that there are some nuclear processes involved. . . "
lenr-canr.org/acrobat/...
“6) He had an idea for an experiment that would more closely qualify if the process is happening or not, but it required more specialized equipment than he had.”
That is what always happens. However much equipment you have, you always need more. As a rule of thumb, to estimate the budget realistically, take the expected cost of the experiment and multiply by 10. Then double that answer. Do the same for the time and effort you think will be required.
Hundreds of experts have “an idea for an experiment.” It isn’t as if they have run out of ideas, or they can’t think of experiment that might spur progress. No doubt many of their ideas are wrong and would lead nowhere. But if a single one of them works out and we learn to control cold fusion, within 10 or 20 years oil may be obsolete; the cost of energy may be reduced by a factor of a thousand; our supplies of energy may be increased a billion-fold; and the threat of global warming eliminated. So I think these researchers should be funded. It is hard for me to understand why so many people furiously oppose this research, and grow livid with anger when someone proposes that a modest experiment be funded.
“Specifically, he would make a hollow palladium negative electrode and let the solution infuse through it, and then measure for helium coming out through the top, from the center of the hollow electrode.”
Various hollow electrodes have often been used, with mixed results. They usually put the entire electrode in the solution and run a wire down the middle in order to load from both sides. Otherwise loading would be uneven, which usually prevents the reaction. If this worked I expect the helium would come out of the electrolyte side, which defeats the purpose. Arata’s DS Cathode is a hollow electrode with Pd-black inside of it. Arata says that the reaction occurs in the Pd-black but I recall SRI and others have seen evidence that the hollow electrode itself plays a bigger role than Arata suspects.
”In the solution, there are loose protons, due to the high dielectricity of the solution, and these can 'filter' through the bulk material of the negative electrode if driven to do so by a voltage gradient. The question is, do these loose protons somehow react in the unit cell of the lattice, and if so, how?”
I wouldn’t know. That’s too advanced for me. You would have to ask an electrochemist, such as Oriani.
- Jed
>> is to discover the formula.
As long as Cold Fusionists still believe in conservation of energy, conservation of lepton number, etc., it should be pretty trivial to find the formula. You just need to look at your input and output and fill in the blanks based on COE and lepton.
>> You are asking the wrong person. Ask a theorist. Read theory papers.
I'm too busy reading my collision-induced absorption papers. You're the C.F. expert, I thought you would link to the paper.
>> theory on the other, I think it is more likely that the latter is correct.
I agree. Always err on the side of Thermodynamics.
>> Right. After electrolysis. The cold fusion process never begins.
That's the after, what about the before? Do you have microscopy in some form of the uncharged electrodes?
>> difficult) and then observe the bubbles on the surface as they degas.
How do the working electrodes degas differently from the nonworking ones? This gives credence to the unit-cell thing, if they're degassing that is definitely a bulk effect, not a surface effect.
>> I recommend you build a machine to speed up and automate the process
>> of characterizing palladium.
I'm not a researcher in this area. My research interest is in colloids, aerosols and molecular theory. As for automating the process fo charaterizing palladium, that seems like a stopgap method. The right thing to do is first know exactly why some cathodes work and why others do not. Has anyone done any solid before and after characterization research on the cathodes, like ellipsometry, field emission microscopy, tunneling microscopy, electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction?
>> This illustrates why cold fusion research should be funded: so that
>> researchers will not be forced to spend years or decades doing work
>> that can be done in a few days with proper equipment.
What can you do? Funding in science is rarer than a woman at a comic book convention. Everyone fights over the meager bit of NSF and other funding. You're going to have to duke it out with the astronomers, biologists, chemists, condensed matter theorists, manatee researchers, metallurgists, etc.. Blame President Bush's administration, they decimated NSF funding, and all we have to show for it is a $10 trillion national debt.
>> Figure that out and you will win a Nobel prize -- assuming the
>> establishment someday admits that cold fusion is real. I am not
>> optimistic that will happen.
Even if Cold Fusion is real that's not Nobel Prize material, assuming you have repeatable, consistent data, that's not a big job, it's just accounting for the energy and filling in the blanks.
>> I have met at least 250 other electrochemists who agree, including
>> Fleischmann and Pons.
Why would they release a paper that unintentionally misled so many people? It's not transparent science, and now the whole field of CF is paying for it.
>> Why Japan in particular? Why not researchers at Los Alamos, China Lake,
That was just the one I mentioned.
>> Theory is not needed to confirm that cold fusion is real.
This philosophy is going to continue to hobble CF. Doing science without theory is like trying to find a destination without a roadmap. You wrote there there are wide, and disparate results. Without a theoretical framework -- even a starting point -- you have no idea with results are worthy and which are noisy.
>> The main point of the tritium in this experiment is then that there are
>> some nuclear processes involved. . . "
Again, here is the problem of trying to find a destination without a roadmap. Let's say the results are spot on, how do you know you didn't inadvertently make some muons and are just producing muon-induced fusion? Then the mystery would not be the fusion, but rather how you made the muons. And if they found a way to make muons 'easily' that's Nobel work too. This near disdain for theory is wrong. Theory is your friend, it's your flashlight in the dark room.
>> As a rule of thumb, to estimate the budget realistically, take the expected
>> cost of the experiment and multiply by 10. Then double that answer. Do
>> the same for the time and effort you think will be required.
I have found this to be true for product development, although careful theory and then careful design can dramatically reduce an experiment's cost. Or in the words of my favorite condensed matter experimentalist ... "one day in the library is worth a week in the lab."
>> usually put the entire electrode in the solution and run a wire down the
>> middle in order to load from both sides. Otherwise loading would be
The goal of the hollow electrode is not to improve the efficiency but to see -- conclusively -- the helium output and check the efficacy of the process. By checking the gas through a sealed and closed duct, there would be no other explanation for the gas products than activity in the bulk material.
>> It is hard for me to understand why so many people furiously oppose
>> this research, and grow livid with anger when someone proposes that
>> a modest experiment be funded.
Let's say, hypothetically, that you folks have found some way to produce the standard 24 MeV fusion result but without the necessary pressure and heat. And then let's assume that somehow, the positrons somehow don't collide with electrons to produce gamma rays and then they somehow don't irradiate the containment vessel and eventually produce nuclear waste. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that Cold Fusion truly is a perfectly clean energy source. Then let's say that CF gets commercialized by a handful of companies that own tightly-protect I.P.. What next?
Well, based on what you say, Cold Fusion is very difficult and complicated. It requires deuterium and/or tritium, which is pretty tough to get, even if you can separate it from seawater. So do we really get limitless energy, increased a "billion-fold"? Probably not, because the technology (and fuel) is tightly controlled by a few consortiums. Do you think they're going to just give away all of that power? Will they be like the Founding Fathers with their energy, intent on liberty, or will they be like DeBeers, intent on protecting the value of a commodity that is not as rare as the price would indicate? If a consortium invested $200 billion into making commercial Cold Fusion a reality are they really going to just give away the power for pennies on the dollar, or are they going to need to be competitive with existing forms of energy?
On the other hand, look at solar energy. History is being made and we're watching it happen. At this moment, solar electricity production is following a near Moore's Law curve for price per kilowatt. There are hundreds of companies competing with each other, and every one of them wants their panels on top of people's roofs, freeing electricity generation in the same way the Internet freed knowledge dissemination. Electricity generation is being taken on by the same people that put a radio in every living room, then a computer on every desk. Their raw material is sand, and their basic technology -- the photoelectric effect -- is over a hundred years old. Honestly, which source of power sounds more freeing to the common person, solar or cold fusion?
And then, let's say that Cold Fusion is somehow able to eventually be made so simply that everyone can run to the local K-Mart and pick up a Cold Fusion generator to stick in their basement next to the water heater. They will still need deuterium and tritium, again difficult to isolate, and easy to regulate due to its potential for political instability. Do you think that these K-Mart fusionists will be able to order a gallon or so of heavy water for $10 that lasts them five years? Or do you think it more likely that an ounce of the fuel will cost them $1000 and last them three months? Do you really have that much confidence in the free market that deuterium will not be tightly regulated?
Or, let's just say, in a real "Back to the Future" moment, that our beloved homeowner can buy a tabletop deuterium/tritium extractor that is powered by the fusion generator, and they simply need to go to the next aisle over at their K-Mart to get into the deuterium-making business, and the governments of the world cared not a whit. They simply pumped a few hundred gallons of seawater, extracted the deuterium and turned on their plasma television. Energy would be nearly limitless, dirt cheap and a new age of reason develops. Right?
Again, I don't think so.
What would we do with limitless energy? Would we have the robot drive the Cold Fusion flying Hummer a hundred miles to pick up the morning newspaper? Would we stroll out to our artificially-lit underground greenhouse and have the robot pick out a particularly delicious mango for breakfast? Limitless energy produces limitless excess.
My point is this ... energy is important, it drives our bodies and our imaginations. Having an unlimited supply of the stuff will not necessarily make us a healthier society. In fact, it may make us a very ill society. You mention Global Warming. Is that a threat because we have filthy energy sources, or because we have had filthy and cheap energy sources for so long? Rather than try to solve society's ills with a magic bullet (like Cold Fusion) perhaps we need to let the patient learn to live healthy. We could start cleaning our atmosphere tomorrow if we made the kind of decisions that we need to make.
For instance, sweating a little bit in the summer and using a solar-battery fan instead of a 220 volt, 120,000 btu air conditioner. Or taking a lower-paying job a few miles from home and walking or riding our bicycle to work instead of burning three gallons of gasoline to get there and back. Talking with our children and telling stories instead of plopping ourselves down in front of the plasma television with surround sound. Eating potatoes and apples for dinner that were grown from the farm down the road, instead of flying in exotic foods from halfway around the globe that someone irradiated so that they will keep better. Insulating our homes with 6-inch fiberglass insulation and using passive solar energy to heat, instead of keeping that 120,000 btu dual-phase heater on high all through February.
You get my drift, no?
We are economically and spiritually ill, in a sense. We don't need a pill to make us better, we need to learn how to live healthy. We need address our desires to live like kings and queens and instead see that living in concert with our neighbors can be satisfying.
I'm an eternal optimist unfortunately, we'll solve our energy dependence by learning to live lean. And we'll learn to live lean through solar power.
"As long as Cold Fusionists still believe in conservation of energy, conservation of lepton number, etc., it should be pretty trivial to find the formula."
Evidently it is not trivial, because thousands of experts including distinguished theorists have not yet solved the problem.
">> Right. After electrolysis. The cold fusion process never begins.
That's the after, what about the before? Do you have microscopy in some form of the uncharged electrodes?"
Of course! I suggest you read the papers. Or read any electrochemistry textbook. I am not going to spoon-feed you every detail.
"Why would they release a paper that unintentionally misled so many people? It's not transparent science, and now the whole field of CF is paying for it."
That is nonsense. No one misled anyone. Every electrochemist I know who read the original paper knew the experiment was difficult. If non-experts were confused, that’s a shame but it wasn’t F&P’s fault. The paper was not good because their knowledge was incomplete, and the paper had to be written in a big hurry, to protect U. Utah’s intellectual property.
”>> Theory is not needed to confirm that cold fusion is real.
This philosophy is going to continue to hobble CF.”
This philosophy is the basis of the scientific method. If we had to have a theory to explain every anomaly, there would be progress in science.
“Doing science without theory is like trying to find a destination without a roadmap.”
What are you talking about?!? Do you think they do not WANT a theory, or they are not looking for one? This is nuts. I said they do not have one now, and they do not need one to prove the anomaly is real. Nobody ever said a theory is not needed, or desirable.
“Well, based on what you say, Cold Fusion is very difficult and complicated.”
No worse than making computer chips or advanced batteries. The material purity and precision is about the same as an advanced battery. There are probably a thousand industrial corporations that could do it. It is difficult now because no one knows how to do it yet, and because the people trying to do it are not funded and do not have the equipment they need.
Looking at cost of materials and at similar manufactured devices, there is no reason to think that cold fusion generators and heaters will be more expensive per unit of power than, say, automobile engines or gas-fired emergency power generators.
"It requires deuterium and/or tritium, which is pretty tough to get, even if you can separate it from seawater."
It does not require tritium! You can separate deuterium from any water on earth, at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield. The cost is of extraction is already thousands of times cheaper than oil or uranium, and it will soon fall to be millions of times cheaper, since the main cost component is energy itself.
"So do we really get limitless energy, increased a "billion-fold&quo.... Probably not, because the technology (and fuel) is tightly controlled by a few consortiums."
Never happen. That scenario is out of the question. The principles are already in the public domain. A force of nature cannot be patented. If one implementation is patented, there will a dozen others available.
"And then, let's say that Cold Fusion is somehow able to eventually be made so simply that everyone can run to the local K-Mart and pick up a Cold Fusion generator to stick in their basement next to the water heater."
The water heater will also be cold fusion powered.
"Or do you think it more likely that an ounce of the fuel will cost them $1000 and last them three months?"
An ounce of heavy water (28 g) costs $28 retail. I can get it from China for $20. With cold fusion input power, any chemical company on earth could make it for $0.28. 28 g of heavy water is enough to power your car for 28 years. You will not use more than ~500 g in a lifetime. (That’s $500 now; a few dollars worth after cold fusion becomes common.) Energy will cost you far less than drinking water from the tap does today.
"Do you really have that much confidence in the free market that deuterium will not be tightly regulated?"
There is not a chance it will be regulated. You might as well try to regulate raindrops.
"What would we do with limitless energy? Would we have the robot drive the Cold Fusion flying Hummer a hundred miles to pick up the morning newspaper? Would we stroll out to our artificially-lit underground greenhouse and have the robot pick out a particularly delicious mango for breakfast? Limitless energy produces limitless excess."
I disagree. See my on-line book on this subject, which was recommended by Arthur C. Clarke and several distinguished professors:
lenr-canr.org/BookBlur...
"I'm an eternal optimist unfortunately, we'll solve our energy dependence by learning to live lean. And we'll learn to live lean through solar power."
You are neither optimist nor pessimist compared to my late friend Arthur Clarke. He saw how things might be incomparably better than they are now, or worse, in ways that most people could never imagine.
There will be no need to be lean. We will use a thousand times more energy people do today, and think nothing of it. The only problem will be waste heat, which can be fixed by moving heavy industry to orbital towers and the moon. As I wrote in the book:
“If people in future generations expend energy at a rate a thousand times greater than we do, and they expend it for purposes we would consider frivolous, it will make no difference and cause no harm, as long as the noise and waste heat does not bother anyone or harm the biosphere. A child playing a video game today has more computing power at her disposal than any scientist had in 1970, and the machine does more calculations in a single second than an ancient mathematician did in a lifetime, yet no one considers this an extravagant waste of resources, and no one raises objections to it.”
- Jed
>> Evidently it is not trivial, because thousands of experts including
>> distinguished theorists have not yet solved the problem.
It's not trivial because it seems nobody knows which data is correct and which is in error. You show me that one group gets 24 MeV, another gets 11, and another gets 0.5 MeV. One group measures no helium, another measures 0.3% flux. One group detects no radiation, another does. With all of this widely disparate data, it's difficult to know which set to use to write the energy balance. So theoretically, it's not a complicated thing, but there needs to either be concordance within the experimental community, or else someone needs to derive the theory and then someone else needs to find data to agree with it. Again, this is the problem of doing science without theory, it progresses very slowly.
>> Of course! I suggest you read the papers. Or read any electrochemistry
>> textbook. I am not going to spoon-feed you every detail.
I didn't see any papers that had this data. And I am not interested in standard electrochemistry from a textbook, I am interested in bulk reactions in the lattice.
>> That is nonsense. No one misled anyone. Every electrochemist I know
>> who read the original paper knew the experiment was difficult. If
>> non-experts were confused, that’s a shame but it wasn’t F&P’s fault.
Awell-respected electrochemist claims otherwise, he says F&P's original paper lacks all of the critical details. That's not a good paper.
>> paper had to be written in a big hurry, to protect U. Utah’s intellectual
>> property.
Not true. I.P. is filed first, which is not disclosed, and then the researchers have at least a year to publish, and can actually stretch that up to two years before disclosure. And you see what happens when they hurried, haste makes waste.
>> This philosophy is the basis of the scientific method. If we had to have a
>> theory to explain every anomaly, there would be progress in science.
And how is that working out for you in Cold Fusion? You can't even give me a basic energy balance of the process.
>> What are you talking about?!? Do you think they do not WANT a theory,
>> or they are not looking for one? This is nuts. I said they do not have one
>> now, and they do not need one to prove the anomaly is real.
We don't know what the anomaly is. Is it Cold Fusion? Is it lepton-induced fusion, is it a new process? Is it systemic? Is it a new type of fission? Anomalys drive physicists insane, the Zeeman effect nearly led Pauli to the edge of unreason, and they put all their effort into solving it. But it seems to me that you are quite content to call it an 'anomaly' and then jump right into the commercialization phase.
>> because no one knows how to do it yet, and because the people trying
>> to do it are not funded and do not have the equipment they need.
If it was no harder than making an advanced battery I would be able to buy a test Cold Fusion cell for a $0.5 million and get to work.
>> It does not require tritium! You can separate deuterium from any water
>> on earth, at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield.
Let's be accurate here ... you meant to write "at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield of fusion." The extraction of deuterium is only affordable if you can make fusion work.
>> The cost is of extraction is already thousands of times cheaper than oil or
>> uranium, and it will soon fall to be millions of times cheaper, since the
>> main cost component is energy itself.
No true as it currently stands, because without a practical fusion generator, deuterium has no energy yield. If I extract oil, I am likely to get more energy out of the molecule than I put into extracting it. That is not currently so with deuterium, because we don't have a practical fusion generator ... right now deuterium is just an expensive variation of water.
>> A force of nature cannot be patented. If one implementation is patented,
>> there will a dozen others available.
Wow, and you wonder why there is no funding for CF. With that attitude, why would any company invest a few billion into possibly making it work if someone else can just fiddle with their method and come out with their own system for $1 million?
>> An ounce of heavy water (28 g) costs $28 retail. I can get it from China
>> for $20. With cold fusion input power, any chemical company on earth
>> could make it for $0.28. 28 g of heavy water is enough to power your car
And gasoline used to be a waste product from the manufacture of kerosene, they literally used to throw out the gasoline because the energy density was (is) 1/4 that of kerosene (diesel). Gasoline is no longer discarded because it is now a valuable product.
>> There is not a chance it will be regulated. You might as well try to regulate
>> raindrops.
Okay. But remember, plain old water is heavily regulated. It costs millions to get FDA approval for just regular old bottled water in each state. I doubt your enthusiasm for lack of regulation will cut too well with the DOE. But maybe, you never know. I'm encouraged by government's reaction to solar, they seem to be welcoming to it finally.
And remember, all of my suppositions are pure fantasy, and assume that there is no radiation (gamma rays or neutrons, etc.) from the process. I have no idea of an energy balance that would accomplish zero hazardous output. If there are positrons (which lead to gamma rays) or neutrons, then suddenly that common fusion generator you envision will turn containment vessels 'hot.' I know, you are probably going to say that none of the Cold Fusion experiments measured any gamma or neutron flux or anything naughty, but if I'm skeptical about Cold Fusion, then I'm doubly skeptical that it can magically happen without byproducts. I have never seen one that can do that.
>> lenr-canr.org/BookBlur...
I'll have a look through your book.
>> my late friend Arthur Clarke
Nice, you knew him? My favorite Clarke quote: "How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when clearly it is Ocean."
>> There will be no need to be lean. We will use a thousand times more
>> energy people do today, and think nothing of it.
Do we need to use a thousand times more energy than we use today? Is it possible that we already use a hundred times more energy than we need? Is it desirable to clog up orbit and the trash the moon with our manufacturing? What is the end purpose of this expansion you propose?
>> A child playing a video game today has more computing power at her
>> disposal than any scientist had in 1970, and the machine does more
And at what cost? Can the kid with the video game do long division in his head? Can the scientist with the supercomputer do some pencil and paper theory to find out what is happening in his Cold Fusion test? Computing power is a good thing, as is energy, as long as it solves a problem or advances society. My computer uses 5% of its processing power to correspond with you, but 100% of its processing power to play a war or sports simulation game. From my perspective, all the computer needs from a societal point of view is the 5%, not the other 95%. Okay, maybe I want to do a Mathematica calculation on air pollution and then I want all the horsepower I can get. That's a good use. Maybe industry needs 1000 times the power for a few decades to build space stations with the intent to colonize space. That might be a good thing. But simply making energy for energy's sake seems hollow ... something like Karel Capek's original R.U.R., where after slaughtering the last of the humans, the robots then announce they will build many houses, simple because that is what the humans designed them to do.
There has to be a need for this energy, and simply living lives of increased luxury doesn't sell me.
>> yet no one considers this an extravagant waste of resources, and no one
>> raises objections to it.”
Not yet, it's new. How much new theory has come along since the advent of the personal computer? It seems that most new theory is now somehow connected to analyzing data, fitting curves, Fourier analysis, wavelets, etc.. Maybe all of this computing power has sapped our mental strength and imagination the same way all of our excess power has made us fat and lazy.
>> Evidently it is not trivial, because thousands of experts including
>> distinguished theorists have not yet solved the problem.
It's not trivial because it seems nobody knows which data is correct and which is in error. You show me that one group gets 24 MeV, another gets 11, and another gets 0.5 MeV. One group measures no helium, another measures 0.3% flux. One group detects no radiation, another does. With all of this widely disparate data, it's difficult to know which set to use to write the energy balance."
The particular disparities you described have not occurred. Everyone who has measured helium has discovered helium, in roughly the same proportion to the heat (although the error bars are large.) Neutrons are either completely absent or if present at levels 10E10 or 10E20 times lower than plasma fusion, which is tantamount to being absent.
There are other disparities and they are the source of the problem, as you say.
"A well-respected electrochemist claims otherwise, he says F&P's original paper lacks all of the critical details."
It lacked critical details mainly because these details were unknown.
“That's not a good paper.”
On the other hand it is one of the most important papers in history and it was replicated thousands of times, and if political opposition can be overcome it will probably give mankind unlimited amounts of energy without any measurable level of pollution, so in these respects it was a good paper.
”>> paper had to be written in a big hurry, to protect U. Utah’s intellectual
>> property.
Not true. I.P. is filed first, which is not disclosed . . .”
I wouldn’t know about that. Fleischmann and officials at the University tell me and had to be published quickly.
”>> This philosophy is the basis of the scientific method. If we had to have a
>> theory to explain every anomaly, there would be progress in science.
And how is that working out for you in Cold Fusion?”
Magnificently, considering the difficulty of the research, the political opposition, and how little funding there is. Cold fusion cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time, and some cold fusion experiments have produced hundreds of times more energy than the best plasma fusion experiment in history, sometimes in fully ignited self-sustaining reactions. Cold fusion has made more progress in 20 years than plasma fusion did in 60, at a cost roughly equivalent to one week of plasma fusion research.
“You can't even give me a basic energy balance of the process.”
You are asking the wrong person, as I mentioned.
”If it was no harder than making an advanced battery I would be able to buy a test Cold Fusion cell for a $0.5 million and get to work.”
If you knew how to do it, you could, of course. If you had known how to make a transistor in 1935 it would not have cost you much to actually do it. In the 1950s, people used to set up brand-new transistor facilities for about $50,000 (roughly $500,000 today). As the scale of the devices got smaller and smaller the production equipment got more expensive.
The equipment and procedures used to make cold fusion devices are similar to equipment used to make other electrochemical devices such as batteries. Some of the hand-made laboratory scale cold fusion devices have produced enough power and energy to be commercially useful, at least for small-scale applications. If people learn to control the effect, there is no reason to think manufacturing will not be a major challenge or expense.
"Let's be accurate here ... you meant to write "at a trivial cost compared to the energy yield of fusion." The extraction of deuterium is only affordable if you can make fusion work."
Obviously that is what I meant! That’s true for both cold fusion and plasma fusion.
">> A force of nature cannot be patented. If one implementation is patented,
>> there will a dozen others available.
Wow, and you wonder why there is no funding for CF."
This is indeed a major stumbling block. This is why research should be carried out at national laboratories and other facilities not oriented to making a profit.
“With that attitude, why would any company invest a few billion into possibly making it work if someone else can just fiddle with their method and come out with their own system for $1 million?”
It is not an attitude; it is a fact. (Or a very likely a fact.) Several executives from large companies have asked me that same question. My best answer, which I will admit is not that good, is that many other products are not patented and yet companies that develop elite making these products often make large profits. For example, food recipes cannot be patented, and yet large companies do make a profit selling food. My other answer is that I predict there will be more profit potential in cold fusion related peripherals than in the core technology, but you can’t have one without the other. So the companies ought to consider the cold fusion technology itself a “loss leader.”
“And remember, all of my suppositions are pure fantasy, and assume that there is no radiation (gamma rays or neutrons, etc.) from the process.”
That is not a supposition. It is an experimentally proven fact. As I mentioned, if they were gamma rays are neutrons I would be dead, and sold several hundred people I know. There are four things that we can be absolutely sure of about cold fusion:
It produces massive excess heat with absolutely no chemical reaction.
It produces tritium.
It produces helium commensurate with the heat.
It does not produce dangerous levels of penetrating radiation.
Researchers have made many other assertions about the effect which may or may not be true, because they have not yet been widely confirmed or refuted.
">> my late friend Arthur Clarke
Nice, you knew him?"
I did. But he knew hundreds of people, probably thousands. Still, I have many letters from him covering an impossibly wide range of topics, and I worked with him on the Millennial Edition of “Profiles of the Future.” Plus I have nice photos from him, especially the one I put in the new section showing him with his pet Tyrannosaurus rex.
"Do we need to use a thousand times more energy than we use today?"
Yes. Emphatically. See the reasons described in the book.
"Is it possible that we already use a hundred times more energy than we need?"
No, we could use a million times more. For example, I think we should terraform Mars.
"Is it desirable to clog up orbit and the trash the moon with our manufacturing?"
Orbital towers do not orbit. If you drop something it falls back to Earth. Trash & pollution are misplaced resources, caused by ignorance and incompetence. Advanced technology properly done does not produce trash.
“What is the end purpose of this expansion you propose?”
Quoting my book again, and a sentiment that Clarke would wholeheartedly endorse: “The ultimate purpose of cold fusion, or any technology, is to give people the freedom to do for themselves, take charge of their lives, and make themselves happy or miserable.”
">> A child playing a video game today has more computing power at her
>> disposal than any scientist had in 1970, and the machine does more
And at what cost? Can the kid with the video game do long division in his head?"
Probably not. People could not do that centuries ago, and yet they did pretty well for themselves. I couldn't do it to save my life. I used a slide rule before small computers came along.
“Can the scientist with the supercomputer do some pencil and paper theory to find out what is happening in his Cold Fusion test?”
Absolutely, positively not. For one thing, the people doing cold fusion are mostly over 70 years old and they do not use computers. A lot of them are “greatest generation” types who cut their teeth at Los Alamos during World War II. One of them pushed the button to fire off the first bomb. Young scientists do not believe in things like cold fusion. Only older scientists to understand how science is supposed to work.
Computers may be partly to blame for that, as you suggest.
- Jed
lenr-canr.org/News.htm
Scroll down a tad to see cute photo.
Scary and pretty photos are here:
lenr-canr.org/Experime...
This illustrates why you should not do cold fusion at home.
- Jed
www.thestreet.com/stor...
Jack H.
>> has measured helium has discovered helium, in roughly the same
>> proportion to the heat (although the error bars are large.) Neutrons are
>> either completely absent or if present at levels 10E10 or 10E20 times
>> lower than plasma fusion, which is tantamount to being absent.
Okay, I was mistaken in my understanding then, I apologize. So you're looking at roughly what proportion of helium compared to energy? Also, did anyone detect gamma rays, or beta or alpha particles? Is there any measurable difference in the other gas products, like Hydrogen, before and after charging? Also, you mentioned some experiments saw 24 MeV, and others saw less, some much less. Specifically, which energy measurements do you suspect as most accurate?
Also, the error is not a huge problem, is it larger than 20 or 30%?
I would like to write a simple energy balance given your "hero data" that is the most repeatable measurements for what you have. It will probably be wrong, but it's nice to start somewhere.
>> There are other disparities and they are the source of the problem,
>> as you say.
Disparities in energy or gas products? Without the theory, of course it's hard to know which is possibly accurate, but it will be fun to attempt a balance anyway.
>> It lacked critical details mainly because these details were unknown.
He meant process details. Precisely what steps to take to reproduce his results. F&P must have known those steps, assuming they took careful notes. Of course, it's also possible that they lucked onto perfect electrodes the first time out, and didn't think anything of the difficulty in characterizing them. What that an issue?
>> so in these respects it was a good paper.
True, but if these things you write are true, that makes it important research, it still doesn't change the condition of the paper itself, which didn't clearly communicate how to replicate.
>> I wouldn’t know about that. Fleischmann and officials at the University
>> tell me and had to be published quickly.
I patent and publish, and the USPTO hasn't changed their disclosure policy. If they filed the Provisional, they then have at least a year of confidentiality to publish. Then they need to file the Utility and the International agreements, and then they get more confidentiality while that awaits approval. It can increase the publishing window by another six to 12 months.
But remember, they went public with their results before they or Jones published. Which is unusual. I thought that it had something to do with the Exxon Valdez, perhaps an energy consortium promised them some research funding if they would present that morning, which gave Exxon several hours to hold up the news about the tanker crash, and hopefully give the day's news a little spin toward the possibility of clean energy, rather than the reality of spilled crude all over Prudhoe Bay.
But who knows on that one, it might just be pure coincidence.
>> Cold fusion cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time,
If it cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time, roughly what is the success ratio in your opinion?
>> some cold fusion experiments have produced hundreds of times more
>> energy than the best plasma fusion experiment in history, sometimes in
Earth-based plasma fusion has obviously never hit break-even.
>> 20 years than plasma fusion did in 60, at a cost roughly equivalent to
>> one week of plasma fusion research.
But you need to understand too, that there was (and is) a lot of experiment going on with the various Tokamacs, and confinement projects. All sorts of people tap into the ports and take various measurements, many of which have nothing at all to do with fusion. Confinement has also led to a larger understanding of related processes.
>> You are asking the wrong person, as I mentioned.
Fair enough, but you are the 'gatekeeper' of the CF publications, if someone wrote one down, you would know about it right? You have more overall knowledge of the field than anyone.
>> people used to set up brand-new transistor facilities for about $50,000
Remember the first transistor, it was made for little more than pocket change. And the part I love most about that is even today, the circuit diagram for a transistor is a pictorial of that first transistor with its own little personality. I remember reading somewhere that they don't know where that first transistor is, and that it may have been discarded. I am a lover of art, and I place the beauty of that one right up there with Monet. In my mind, given the result of its invention, as artwork, it is priceless.
>> This is indeed a major stumbling block. This is why research should be
>> carried out at national laboratories and other facilities not oriented to
>> making a profit.
National labs want to make profits too. But I don't see this as a problem the way you do. You write that nature cannot be patented, but the myriad of ways to harness nature can definitely be patented. Of course, we're bucking against the USPTO restriction, because someone important told them it doesn't work. But if the patents are prosecuted individually in the EU and Asia, it seems that would hold the I.P. in the U.S. when and if the USPTO restriction is lifted.
>> It is not an attitude; it is a fact. (Or a very likely a fact.)
I'm not trying to put wind in your sails, but I think this is not the problem you think it is. I don't see why the various configurations here could not be patented. I.P. can be be protected.
>> That is not a supposition. It is an experimentally proven fact. As I
>> mentioned, if they were gamma rays are neutrons I would be dead, and
Nah, not necessarily. The body can repair a fair amount of radiation damage. These things don't run constantly, if they're just being used for research, and if it does have an actual reaction (of which we don't know) then you might see no more than a few hundred thousand becquerels, which won't kill you.
>> It produces massive excess heat with absolutely no chemical reaction.
>> It produces tritium.
>> It produces helium commensurate with the heat.
I would love to see some amounts/proportions of these. How much tritium?
>> It does not produce dangerous levels of penetrating radiation.
Okay, not dangerous, but even if it's some beta, it would explain the process.
>> I did. But he knew hundreds of people, probably thousands. Still, I have
It's quite a feather in your cap. He was very well-spoken.
>> Yes. Emphatically. See the reasons described in the book.
Urgh, you're going to make me read through the whole thing? I'm up to my eyeballs in work and research. Can't you summarize? I promise, when I finish all of this stuff I'm working on I will catch up with many of the books I've been meaning to read.
>> No, we could use a million times more. For example, I think we should
>> terraform Mars.
I disagree. Mars might be the only planet of its kind in the Galaxy, why should we risk damaging (and completely changing) something like that? Same with the Moon. Should we 'terraform' Alaska or protect it as one of our few remaining pristine wilderness areas? Should we melt all the ice in Antarctica to get to the minerals and oil below? What's the point of damaging and changing all of these places? Should people try to live in concert with nature rather than trying to strong-arm her?
>> Advanced technology properly done does not produce trash.
I suggest that a Moon full of factories or a Mars with a changed atmosphere would resemble trash.
>> “The ultimate purpose of cold fusion, or any technology, is to give
>> people the freedom to do for themselves, take charge of their lives,
>> and make themselves happy or miserable.”
I no don't see technology as a liberating force, it's simply a force. Liberation can only come from within. And if we had a billion times more energy, but without evolved thought, we would simply be a billion times more enslaved. China has the Internet, but they can't discuss things the way you and I do.
In my opinion, we currently have far more energy than we need, and we're wasting most of it in our attempts to live like kings and queens. and the end result of our striving for the materials of royalty is that we end up living like slaves.
"So you're looking at roughly what proportion of helium compared to energy? Also, did anyone detect gamma rays, or beta or alpha particles?"
Alpha particles are helium-4, measured in the gas after they stop moving. I don’t think you could get a detector into a liquid cell or even a gas cell to catch them when they are formed. It doesn’t take much to stop them.
"Is there any measurable difference in the other gas products, like Hydrogen, before and after charging? Also, you mentioned some experiments saw 24 MeV . . ."
That’s 24 MeV of energy PER HELIUM ATOM, when they measure helium. Not 24 MeV per palladium atom yet! As far as I know the record is roughly 10,000 eV per atom of Pd. Of course it could eventually go much higher than 24 MeV, as new deuterons move into the lattice.
"Also, the error is not a huge problem, is it larger than 20 or 30%?"
Very large for small amounts, smaller for large amounts. See McKubre or Miles.
“>> There are other disparities and they are the source of the problem,
>> as you say.
Disparities in energy or gas products?”
I would say the biggest inconsistencies are in the tritium, gamma rays and neutrons. My guess is that the reaction produces varying amounts of these. In other words, it isn’t that tritium is measured wrong; it actually appears in widely varying amounts. It seems to appear when excess heat is weak or intermittent, analogous to the way heavy smoke is the product of incomplete combustion. (Incomplete? Insufficient?)
“>> It lacked critical details mainly because these details were unknown.
He meant process details. Precisely what steps to take to reproduce his results. F&P must have known those steps, assuming they took careful notes.”
No, they did not know these steps, as Bockris remarked at the time. Their success rate was still low. Of course they knew a lot more than they put in the paper, but it was mostly common knowledge of electrochemistry, such as: “keep the electrolyte clean.” In other words, do not let cat hairs into the electrolyte.
Everyone, including F&P, grants that the paper was written quickly with few details.
“Of course, it's also possible that they lucked onto perfect electrodes the first time out, and didn't think anything of the difficulty in characterizing them.”
It was not luck at all. When they decided to do the experiment, Fleischmann went to Johnson Matthey, told them he wanted to try extraordinarily high loading, and asked them to recommend the best material for that purpose. They recommended the palladium used in hydrogen purifier filters, which has a lot of silver in it as I recall. That is not a surprising recommendation.
Many others have used this material successfully. Researchers at NASA and BARC both used an actual hydrogen filter (the whole gadget), successfully.
">> Cold fusion cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time,
If it cannot be reproduced nearly 100% of the time, roughly what is the success ratio in your opinion?"
It depends on the group and the experiment. Mitsubishi’s transmutation experiments work every time, as far as I know. McKubre says that when they achieve the target loading, flux and whatnot, it always works, but I think they only achieve the conditions ~70% of the time. See:
lenr-canr.org/acrobat/...
www.lenr-canr.org/acro...
"Earth-based plasma fusion has obviously never hit break-even."
I assume you define break-even as: as much heat comes out as you put in. This might also be called “100% excess.” This is not enough to sustain the reaction mechanically.
Many cold fusion reactions with input energy have reached 300% excess. Some cold fusion reactions have no input energy; they are completely self-sustaining or “fully ignited” sometimes for hundreds of hours. This is not actually a desirable condition because there is some question as to how you might control or quench this reaction on a large scale. It would be better to have some control factor such as input energy, but as far as I know the input energy into electrolysis has little relationship to the strength of the reaction. It is needed to form the material and maintain flux.
“>> people used to set up brand-new transistor facilities for about $50,000
Remember the first transistor, it was made for little more than pocket change.”
No quite pocket change. Around $6 each I think, which would be ~$60 today. The zone-refining gadgets and other equipment was expensive. Also the failure rate was much higher than for cold fusion, so they had to make many devices to get a few good ones.
“>> That is not a supposition. It is an experimentally proven fact. As I
>> mentioned, if they were gamma rays are neutrons I would be dead, and
Nah, not necessarily. The body can repair a fair amount of radiation damage.”
The plasma fusion people never tire of telling us that if cold fusion produces even 1 watt, everyone in the room should be dead within minutes. That is called the dead graduate student problem; i.e. why isn’t the graduate student dead? Hundreds of researchers have spent days or weeks working next to unshielded cells that produce anywhere from 1 to 100 W, and not one of them is dead. Although a couple of them narrowly avoided being hurt in serious explosions.
The plasma fusion people think this proves that cold fusion is an experimental error or fraud. I think it proves that cold fusion is aneutronic.
”>> It produces massive excess heat with absolutely no chemical reaction.
>> It produces tritium.
>> It produces helium commensurate with the heat.
I would love to see some amounts/proportions of these. How much tritium?”
Varying amounts. That’s a mystery.
- Jed
>> I don’t think you could get a detector into a liquid cell or even a gas cell
>> to catch them when they are formed. It doesn’t take much to stop them.
They're dangerous in the air, much more so than any other kind of radiation. Again, I didn't see any data on how much alpha radiation was measured.
>> That’s 24 MeV of energy PER HELIUM ATOM, when they measure helium.
>> Not 24 MeV per palladium atom yet!
I got that, it implies very accurate measurement of the helium.
>> Of course it could eventually go much higher than 24 MeV, as new
>> deuterons move into the lattice.
You lost me. If they're claiming 24 MeV per reaction, how would that go higher? That's the amount they're claiming per reaction. Are you saying they might get a completely different kind of reaction?
>> See McKubre or Miles.
I read the former, there was nothing in there about any gas measurement, just heat measurement.
>> I would say the biggest inconsistencies are in the tritium, gamma rays
>> and neutrons. My guess is that the reaction produces varying amounts of
I don't know. On the nuclear level, a reaction is a reaction. It's not like a chemical reaction, where there are varying statistics of the systems. The only way that I can see that there could be wide variability in neutrons and gamma rays is if there are several different possible reactions, or measurement error.
Since you're sticking by the "no error" thing, I guess there must be several different kinds of reactions. This is definitely not like muon-induced fusion.
>> Of course they knew a lot more than they put in the paper,
That's not good practice, they are supposed to put in everything they can. A patent can be invalidated if shown that the writers didn't include critical details. Publishing is an all-or-nothing kind of deal.
>> such as: “keep the electrolyte clean.” In other words, do not let cat hairs
I understand that there were researchers who did this that didn't know electrochemistry. That doesn't include the people I know though, and they didn't measure any alpha particles.
>> It was not luck at all. When they decided to do the experiment,
But you wrote that it can take months of looking at nearly identical electrodes to find some that will work. None of that difficulty with characterization was in the paper.
>> Many cold fusion reactions with input energy have reached 300% excess.
If that's the case, that's commercially viable.
>> No quite pocket change. Around $6 each I think, which would be ~$60
Not transistors, I wrote the "first transistor." This guy: cnx.org/content/m11315...
>> The plasma fusion people never tire of telling us that if cold fusion
>> produces even 1 watt, everyone in the room should be dead within
Lessee ... based on what you told me, I get that you're measuring no more that one alpha particle per 24 MeV, right? So that is one alpha particle per 3.85 x 10^-12 joules, so 1 watt is one joule per second, which leads to suggest that 1 watt of power would necessitate a flux of 2.6 x 10^11 alpha particles per second. How dangerous would this be? Unfortunately it's gaseous. Now, the max allowable Polonium in a human is 6.8 picograms. So assuming 5% of the alpha particles escape with the vented gas breather to the calorimeter, or 1.3 x 10^10 particles per second, and then of that, 5% or inhaled (based on sphere surface of about 5 meters from calorimeter) or 6.8 x 10^8 alpha particles per second that would enter the body. So, if 6.8 picograms is the threshold dose, that leads to lethality of about 10 nanograms of inhaled Polonium, which we are using to calibrate your "dead student problem." So there are 210 grams of Polonium per mole, which leads to a lethal dose of 3 x 10^14 atoms in localized tissue. Therefore, assuming one alpha particle per Polonium molecule, if you stood near a poorly contained Cold Fusion setup that was pumping 1 watt, you would get the lethal dose in about 24 hours. Now, if careful gas-trapping safety methods are used and assuming only 0.1% of the particles escape and only 0.1% is breathed in, the mortality comes closer to about ten times the conventional death-by-tobacco rates, since tobacco contains natural contaminations of Polonium 210. So, any statistical variance of Cold Fusion researchers dying of lung cancer? That would be a macabre way of proving that you are getting fusion!
>> Hundreds of researchers have spent days or weeks working next to
>> unshielded cells that produce anywhere from 1 to 100 W, and not one of
Unshielded? They're breathing in -- assuming the measurements are correct -- straight alpha particles? I wouldn't be so cavalier with safety.
>> The plasma fusion people think this proves that cold fusion is an
>> experimental error or fraud. I think it proves that cold fusion is aneutronic.
I'll take neutrons over alpha particles. Alpha just scares the snot out of me for some reason. Back before I got into theory, and I had to do some scintillation experiments with an alpha emitter, I was just a nervous wreck. One guy I know who works uses alpha sources for low-energy experiments does a full video run through using a dummy source before doing it for real. Gamma and neutrons don't scare me that much because I reckon we have evolved with some capacity to deal with ionizing radiation due to the Earth's history of magnetic pole reversals, which would allow in radiation when the Van Allen belts are down.
>> Varying amounts. That’s a mystery.
That's a key ingredient to do an energy balance. It's a pretty simple problem, but only if you know what the measurements are.
"[Alpha particles] are dangerous in the air, much more so than any other kind of radiation. Again, I didn't see any data on how much alpha radiation was measured."
1. They never get out of the cells into the air.
2. They are not dangerous “in the air.” 1 cm of air will stop them. Less than 1 cm if the air is filled with smoke or steam will stop them. See: smoke detector, americium
">> That’s 24 MeV of energy PER HELIUM ATOM, when they measure helium.
>> Not 24 MeV per palladium atom yet!
I got that, it implies very accurate measurement of the helium."
No especially accurate. Normal for the labs where they measure it.
"You lost me. If they're claiming 24 MeV per reaction, how would that go higher?"
I mean normalized against Pd atoms. It will go up indefinitely as new deuterons move into the lattice. It will keep increasing for as long as you run the machine.
”>> Of course they knew a lot more than they put in the paper,
That's not good practice, they are supposed to put in everything they can.”
Everything that Fleischmann knows about this fills several textbooks. Storms put a lot of what he knows into his book. It is 312 pages.
”>> It was not luck at all. When they decided to do the experiment,
But you wrote that it can take months of looking at nearly identical electrodes to find some that will work.”
Yup. That’s with Tanaka KK palladium or some other off-the-shelf stuff. If you can get the specialized material from Johnson Matthey it will pass the tests at a much higher rate. Unfortunately, I do not know anyone who can get it.
“None of that difficulty with characterization was in the paper.”
The paper would have to be hundreds of pages long to characterize the difficulties. It would also have to be clairvoyant, since F&P were not even aware of many of the difficulties when they wrote it.
”>> Many cold fusion reactions with input energy have reached 300% excess.
If that's the case, that's commercially viable.”
Not really. It can’t be controlled. If you scaled it up, it would probably blow your head off.
“. . . which leads to suggest that 1 watt of power would necessitate a flux of 2.6 x 10^11 alpha particles per second. How dangerous would this be?”
Not even one tiny bit dangerous. No worse than a helium balloon. In your entire lifetime you would produce even 1 kg of the stuff. The whole world will produce 6 tons per year. There must be billions of tons in the atmosphere already. (5.2 ppm * 5.2 * 10E18 kg = 267 billion tons)
"Unfortunately it's gaseous. Now, the max allowable Polonium in a human is 6.8 picograms. So assuming 5% of the alpha particles escape with the vented gas breather to the calorimeter . . ."
By the time they come out, they are inert helium.
”Unshielded? They're breathing in -- assuming the measurements are correct -- straight alpha particles? I wouldn't be so cavalier with safety.”
Of course they are not open! All kinds of contamination would get in. They are not shielded against neutrons and gamma rays.
“>> Varying amounts [of tritium]. That’s a mystery.
That's a key ingredient to do an energy balance. It's a pretty simple problem, but only if you know what the measurements are.”
Anyone can see what the measurements are. The problem is not simple. If it were simple, it would have been solved years ago.
- Jed
I thought you wrote that the gas products have to be released. Do you mean these cells are completely closed then?
>> 2. They are not dangerous “in the air.” 1 cm of air will stop them.
>> Less than 1 cm if the air is filled with smoke or steam will stop them.
I accounted for that in my calculation. It's absorbs exponentially, so assuming you're standing about 5 feet from the cell you're only getting the tail of the decay. But that's enough.
>> See: smoke detector, americium
Yeah, there is an alpha source in smoke detectors. It measures changes in the radiation flux from things in the air cutting the flux, in that whole detector is only about 30,000 bq though, that's a completely different order of magnitude that what we're talking about.
>> Everything that Fleischmann knows about this fills several textbooks.
>> Storms put a lot of what he knows into his book. It is 312 pages.
I understand, but those were published well after the initial paper couldn't account for all of those null results.
>> The paper would have to be hundreds of pages long to characterize the
>> difficulties. It would also have to be clairvoyant, since F&P were not even
>> aware of many of the difficulties when they wrote it.
So then they were fortunate the first time out. That happens too.
>> Not really. It can’t be controlled. If you scaled it up, it would probably
>> blow your head off.
They can't find a way to control it? So why not just work with a small lattice and a small amount of 'fuel' and let the thing run itself out?
>> Not even one tiny bit dangerous. No worse than a helium balloon.
A helium balloon is full of an inert gas, there are no alpha sources in a helium balloon.
>> In your entire lifetime you would produce even 1 kg of the stuff.
The average human gives off about 7000 bq of radiation. How do you use this to compute 1 kg of alpha particles? We ingest a certain amount of Polonium and Uranium contamination, but again, this is nowhere near the flux from a 1 watt fusion source, assuming what you wrote is correct, about the Helium-4 output.
>> The whole world will produce 6 tons per year. There must be billions of
>> tons in the atmosphere already. (5.2 ppm * 5.2 * 10E18 kg = 267
>> billion tons)
There are billions of tons of Uranium contamination in ground water sources, but we're not gassifying it, standing next to the source and breathing in the alpha particles.
>> By the time they come out, they are inert helium.
Brush up on your statistical dynamics, airborne alpha particles are a real threat, they cause lung cancer. Just because they can be easily absorbed doesn't change the fact that they are many times more damaging to human cells than other radiation sources.
>> Of course they are not open! All kinds of contamination would get in.
>> They are not shielded against neutrons and gamma rays.
I must be losing it. I thought you wrote that the cells are vented.
>> Anyone can see what the measurements are. The problem is not simple.
>> If it were simple, it would have been solved years ago.
If you can get consistent data for the tritium, and you can account for all of the energy, writing the energy balance is not difficult.
”I thought you wrote that the gas products have to be released. Do you mean these cells are completely closed then?”
I mean:
1. The alpha particles whack into a wall, stop moving, and become ordinary helium atoms.
2. The gas, including the helium, gets out eventually, usually through a bubbler (trap) and then into a mass spectrometer. But even if you let it out directly into the air it would not hurt. (I wouldn't breathe it however, because effluent gas from a cold fusion cell usually has droplets of toxic electrolyte mixed in.)
">> 2. They are not dangerous “in the air.” 1 cm of air will stop them.
>> Less than 1 cm if the air is filled with smoke or steam will stop them.
I accounted for that in my calculation. It's absorbs exponentially, so assuming you're standing about 5 feet from the cell you're only getting the tail of the decay. But that's enough."
They NEVER get through the walls of a cell. A piece of paper is enough to stop any alpha particle. A glass or steel cell wall is much thicker, and will stop any alpha particle.
">> Everything that Fleischmann knows about this fills several textbooks.
>> Storms put a lot of what he knows into his book. It is 312 pages.
I understand, but those were published well after the initial paper couldn't account for all of those null results."
There were not many null results. I can account for most of them. It was obvious why they failed. Actually, the most famous three of them, MIT, CalTech and Harwell, successfully replicated cold fusion heat. They don’t want to admit it, but their results clearly show excess heat.
”So then [F&P] were fortunate the first time out. That happens too.”
Not the first time out. It took about five years before they got anything, as I recall.
">> Not really. It can’t be controlled. If you scaled it up, it would probably
>> blow your head off.
They can't find a way to control it? So why not just work with a small lattice and a small amount of 'fuel' and let the thing run itself out?"
That’s what they do. They use a small lattice and let it run for a long time. Not too long because they need the equipment for other tests and they need to analyze the cathodes.
“Letting the thing run itself out” until all of the deuterium converts to helium would take hundreds of years, or thousands, or millions of years, depending on how much heavy water there is in the cell. I have never heard of anyone running one for more than a month or two.
">> Not even one tiny bit dangerous. No worse than a helium balloon."
A helium balloon is full of an inert gas, there are no alpha sources in a helium balloon.
There is no alpha SOURCE in the effluent gas from a cold fusion cell. The source is the cathode. The gas is oxygen, D2 and a minute amount of helium, that was deuterium before the reaction. I am sure the contamination exceeds the helium in most cells.
">> In your entire lifetime you would produce even 1 kg of the stuff.
The average human gives off about 7000 bq of radiation. How do you use this to compute 1 kg of alpha particles?"
I computed how much deuterium you need over a lifetime to generate all the energy you need. It is about 500 g to maybe 1 kg. It does not all convert to helium; a tiny fraction converts to energy, of course. The rest is helium. 1 kg of alpha particles after they stop moving is 1 kg of helium, which is perfectly harmless.
"There are billions of tons of Uranium contamination in ground water sources, but we're not gassifying it, standing next to the source and breathing in the alpha particles."
You breathe billions of alpha particles with every breath. They are called helium atoms.
">> By the time they come out, they are inert helium.
Brush up on your statistical dynamics, airborne alpha particles are a real threat, they cause lung cancer."
Not after they stop moving (and de-ionize, I suppose). Alpha SOURCES are a real threat. If you swallow americium you are in big trouble. If you swallow a cold fusion cathode you are somewhat less trouble because the reaction usually stops quickly once the cathode is removed from the cell. Although I wouldn’t recommend breathing in the Pd-black or Zr-Pd powder from Arata’s cell. It probably continues to produce cold fusion heat and helium for hundreds of hours after loading. It might even continue in your lungs. This could be a problem after a severe accident with a cold fusion powered machine.
”I must be losing it. I thought you wrote that the cells are vented.”
By the time the gas comes out of the vent (and through various 1-way doors to keep the outside air out), the alpha particles are ordinary helium.
"If you can get consistent data for the tritium, and you can account for all of the energy, writing the energy balance is not difficult."
You cannot get consistent data for tritium because nature does not produce tritium consistently. Writing the energy balance would be easy if it were not so difficult. Or as Anna Russell put it: “Things would be so different, if they were not as they are.”
- Jed
>> gets out eventually, usually through a bubbler (trap) and then into a
>> mass spectrometer. But even if you let it out directly into the air it would
Okay, that sounds safe, as long as their is a 100% baffle of some sort to trap the alpha particles.
>> A glass or steel cell wall is much thicker, and will stop any alpha particle.
I understand that, I didn't realize that all of the gas release is intercepted. I envisioned an open vent to the cell.
>> “Letting the thing run itself out” until all of the deuterium converts to
>> helium would take hundreds of years, or thousands, or millions of years,
Nah, just jacket the electrode or else use a jacketed thin-film trap and control the dissociation into the unit cell through a vacuum.
>> You breathe billions of alpha particles with every breath.
>> They are called helium atoms.
I don't breathe alpha particles if I can avoid it. Alpha particles are definitely not helium atoms, that lack of electrons makes the alpha particle very reactive, while helium is inert.
>> Not after they stop moving (and de-ionize, I suppose).
Yes, most of them react in the air, but there is always that tail end of the exponential that you need to worry about. But you guys use bubblers and traps, so then you're essentially looking at the exponential reduction of the tail of the exponential, which is safe.
Anyway, best of luck with this cold fusion thing. We should chat sometime, my office phone number is 205-348-3779. I'm out of the office for the rest of this week, but starting next week I'll be there, after noon Central time, I have to teach summer session for the physics labs. Since I'm (temporarily at least) part of the evil academic establishment, I'll make sure I brainwash them to the value of photovoltaics, C.O.E. and Second Law of Thermo.
Dollar is now the gold standard becaue everyone else is doing poorer than the US. The next adminstration will reverse the course by forcing currency revaluation at the expense of higher production cost and hopefully more lower paying jobs kept in the US. Does that spell inflation? Okay, unless we create a new technology that automates things and nearly free and abudance source of energy.
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