NAVY EXPERIMENT GIVES BOOST TO COLD FUSION
DAILY TECH - Navy scientists claim that slices of CR-39 plastic. . . have recorded the passage of atomic particles emitted during successful cold fusion nuclear reactions. New proof that cold fusion works could fuel additional interest in generating power from low energy nuclear reactions
Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream - a potentially unlimited source of clean energy that remains tantalizing, but so far unattainable.
However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego throws cold water on skeptics of cold fusion. Appearing in the respected journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein among its distinguished authors, the article claims that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community.
Cold fusion has gotten the cold shoulder from serious nuclear physicists since 1989, when Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were unable to substantiate their sensational claims that deuterium nuclei could be forced to fuse and release excess energy at room temperature. Spawar researchers apparently kept the faith, however, and continued to refine the procedure by experimenting with new fusionable materials. . .
The Spawar method shows promise, particularly in terms of being easily reproduced and verified by other institutions. Such verification is essential to widespread acceptance of the apparent breakthrough, an important precursor to scientists receiving the necessary funding to fuel additional research in the field.
OUR COLD FUSION ARCHIVES
6 Comments:
a tragic and scary thought indeed.
imagine how much more awful human primate life would be with an "unlimited source of clean energy".
modern life sucks with limited sources of energy, "clean" (whatever that really means) or not.
i shudder to think how exponentially worse it would get without such constraints.
You are on the right track ..keep thinking. The power of the atom under the hood of your car someday. Far fetched?
OK ..Let me tell you about two bike shop guys who said they could build a plane and fly 700 feet - and folks just laughed at them and called them frauds. Last I saw, Southwest Airlines now offers tickets to fly on such a wacky imaginary machine anywhere in the continental US.
Or, how about the chap who grew up and electrified the world and never had a college education (Edison). He just happened to save the life of a small boy from the train tracks and as a reward was given a job at as a teletype operator. Over 2000 patents later, imagine how much the world would be different without Thomas Edison.
They say that the "future is right before our eyes, if we would only open them and see". I believe that it is. Everything we'll be talking about in 15 years is a germ of an idea right now. Like the computer was decades ago. With a tool like the internet, we now have to mine for that knowledge amongst a clutter of ideas.
"With a tool like the internet, we now have to mine for that knowledge amongst a clutter of ideas."
how rapaciously true!
"The production of the silicon chips used in all computery stuff is extremely resource intensive. While silicon itself is very abundant, it is extracted in destructive sand mining around the world, and the refinement process requires heating to 1900 degrees, then treating with nitric, sulphuric and hydrofluoric acids and arsenic. And it’s thirsty work: a UN study found that the production of a complete computer and monitor takes 240kg of fossil fuels, 22kg of chemicals, 1,500 litres of water – and that’s before packaging and long distance distribution."
~ SILI-CON JOB
but don't let pesky, inconsequential things like facts get in your way.
they're a "post-modern" buzz-kill!
Someone here wrote:
"imagine how much more awful human primate life would be with an 'unlimited source of clean energy'."
The notion that unlimited energy from cold fusion would hurt mankind or the ecology was expressed back in 1989, when cold fusion was first announced. I disagree. Quoting myself:
"When cold fusion was first announced in 1989, some extreme environmentalists feared for the worst. A. Lovins, J. Rifkin and others said they hoped cold fusion was an experimental error because it would give mankind too much power. They compared it to giving a baby a machine gun. Rifkin said, 'the [cold] fusion findings are the worst news that ever happened. Right when we are beginning to develop a global awareness of problems of global society, here come some scientists saying we don’t have to deal with these problems.' I do not understand this logic. If, in fact, we no longer have to deal with 'these problems' -- pollution and the energy crisis -- we can deal with other problems instead. It is not as if we are running short of calamities. Cold fusion can do nothing to solve the U.S. health-care crisis, AIDS, crime, racial intolerance and religious wars. It will not educate the millions of illiterate people in the world. Does Rifkin think our only problems are pollution and the energy crisis, and it would be a shame to fix them because we would have nothing left to worry about? In any case, we can easily destroy the earth with the technology we already have. We do not need cold fusion, nuclear bombs or any advanced technology. We are using fire, man’s oldest tool, to destroy the rain forests. The ancient Chinese, Greeks and Romans deforested large areas and turned millions of hectares of productive cropland into desert. The destructive side effects of technology in 2000 BC were as bad as they are today."
See "Cold Fusion and the Future," chapter 19:
http://lenr-canr.org/BookBlurb.htm
- Jed Rothwell
So, to what higher use were you planning to put those raw materials? Except for the miniscule amount of material we've shot into space - replaced many thousand-fold every year as a result of meteorite accretions - everything that was on the planet when humans first became self-aware is still here. The raw materials we use may be transformed by technology, but their atoms remain right here on earth, ready to be recycled endlessly.
So what's the real problem?
Just a little bit of background to add here -
Bennett Daviss' article in New Scientist on May 3 is a follow-up piece to the in-depth article on the SPAWAR San Diego research by Steven Krivit and Daviss published in New Energy Times in November.
Apparently, New Scientist chose to neglect the term "low energy nuclear reactions," which those of us observing, and working in the field have now adopted.
The term "cold fusion" was never chosen by Fleischmann and Pons; it was wished on them by the press. It was and is a poor descriptor for the phenomenon. The concept of fusion remains highly speculative, a variety of phenomena are clearly not fusion, and then there is the Widom-Larsen not-fusion theory. (http://www.newenergytimes.com/wltheory)
Related New Energy Times stories:
Report on the 2006 Naval Science and Technology Partnership Conference (Sept. 10, 2006) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET18.htm#FROM...
Extraordinary Evidence (Nov. 10, 2006) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET19.htm#ee)
Extraordinary Courage: Report on Some LENR Presentations at the 2007 American Physical Society Meeting (March 16, 2007) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2007/NET21.htm#apsr...
Charged Particles for Dummies: A Conversation With Lawrence P.G. Forsley (May 10, 2007) (http://newenergytimes.com/news/2007/NET22.htm)
Steven Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
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