Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough

[Neo Atheist]

Source: AFP

Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is "significant" evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community.

The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions.

"Our finding is very significant," said analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California.

"To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device," added the study's co-author in a statement.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090324/ts_alt_afp/usscienceenergynuclear

---

I wonder if they also figured out how to turn lead into gold.

The article also states that there wasn't exclusion of other possibilities that resulted in the production of neutrons, or how fusion occurs at room temperature. I wonder if the Discovery Institute is behind this...

edit: more accurately expand on one of the failings of this "breakthrough" research.

[cobalt1999]

1. Haven't we seen this before?

I think the University of Utah is still trying to live it down.

[KoKo]

6. Some group in Princeton NJ was leader on this back in the 70's & 80's...

:eyes: I guess it's just another group looking for more funding.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. Weren't The Princeton Folks Doing *Very Hot* Fusion?

So hot they could only be held in magnetic bottles?

[KoKo]

16. When I lived there they called it "cold fusion." The latest thing....

lots of big funding they had for working on it for years. I don't live there anymore...but I think it wasn't successful.

[Tesha]

45. Princeton Plasma Physics Lab

...Doing quite well with Tokomak fusion until
Reagan pulled most of their funding.

Now the magnetic-confinement fun is mostly in Europe at ITER.

Tesha

[caseymoz]

21. No, those guys were in Utah

Now they finally found a way to detect neutrons being released. It means a nuclear reactions were taking place.

[depakid]

27. Pons and Fleishman

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

[snake in the grass]

39. There was a breakthrough of sorts...

...in the Black Mesa Research Facility, New Mexico, in 1998. One of their scientists, Dr. Gordon Freeman, disappeared shortly thereafter and the government has been silent since.

[truthisfreedom]

2. Exciting!

I love energy-related scientific breakthroughs.

[pscot]

3. We probably won't even need cold fusion

since the fabulous turkey digester will soon be producing power too cheap to meter.

[CLANG]

4. I AM FREE!!

I AM FREE-HEE!

[proud progressive]

5. thank you, dr. hans. we all knew you would not let us down FOREVER.

[Hokie]

7. My BS detector just went crazy

This quote is significant:

Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss's published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.

[CLANG]

9. What do you mean by that?

Rice University gives BS, BA, masters, and phd.

[leftyclimber]

12. This is one of the guys who reviewed the article.

Meaning he had say, as a fellow scientist, in whether he thought it was fit for publication.

No dis on Rice or its scientists' credibility in that quote, if that's what you were thinking.

[CLANG]

13. No, I posted drunk again - my bad. Thanks for the info!

[Tunkamerica]

37. BS stands for two things. It was a pun.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

43. heck, I don't understand how little ones and zeros can

make great images of a young Brigid Bardot appear on my screen, with no clothing. Nor do I have a plausible explanation of how her sexy shots could take place on a piece of mainly silicon based on a bunch of numbers.

[santamargarita]

8. Anyone else noticed we hear more about science now...

that that fascist pig, Bush, is finally gone?

[iamthebandfanman]

18. yup, its to bad some DU'ers are quick to throw

it in the garbage.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

33. It's pretty incredible that they were able to do this in 2 months.

Oh wait. Never mind they have been working on this for 20 years.

David

[Tunkamerica]

38. Being intentionally dense?

Hearing more about scientific work in the news does not mean all discoveries were this administrations doing. The previous poster didn't say or mean that. You just wanted to make your point. We get it. Not everything good that happens from now on is Obama's doing.

Personally, I would welcome more science stories making the front page though I doubt it will ever happen.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

46. I welcome the stories also.

[CLANG]

10. OK - Guilty as charged

I just realized this guy is full of ???????.

[Eugenian]

11. Where did they publish their results?

Was it here?

[struggle4progress]

41. Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd-D Co-deposition

Mosier-Boss PA, Szpak S, Gordon FE, Forsley LP
Die Naturwissenschaften 96(1):135-42, 2009 Jan

http://www.labmeeting.com/paper/28579042/triple-tracks-in-cr-39-as-the-result-of-pd-d-co-deposition-evidence-of-energetic-neutrons

Not sure: this might be the paper. If so, they don't seem to be claiming direct evidence for fusion but rather indirect evidence of C-12 break-up

[MannyGoldstein]

14. I Suspect That There's Something To Cold Fusion

As an engineer, I understand that there's no theoretical underpinnings for it. However, as a student of human nature, it just seems too bizarre that two university physicists just made stuff up - physicists are the smartest people around, they'd know they'd get caught. I suspect something happened but they didn't actually understand it, and thus couldn't produce it.

[iamthebandfanman]

17. yah, what do they gain by lying?

i mean, if anything it makes their careers suffer if they were just making shit up.

there has to be some basis behind this, or they wouldnt say so.

people at DU are pretty closed minded to this stuff, which is suprising to me...

its like it said at the end of that article,

(Steven Krivit, editor of the New Energy Times, said the study was "big" and could open a new scientific field.

The neutrons produced in the experiments "may not be caused by fusion but perhaps some new, unknown nuclear process," added Krivit, who has monitored cold fusion studies for the past 20 years.

"We're talking about a new field of science that's a hybrid between chemistry and physics.")

i guess people here at DU dont think new fields of science are possible, and we shouldnt look beyond what we already know

[skepticscott]

20. What did Pons and Fleischmann have to gain by lying?

Nothing. But they were still full of shit, and there was absolutely no basis behind what they did, even though they said so. It's not always about lying, you know. Sometimes it's about self-delusion and simply not being that smart.

And WTF is the "New Energy Times" but an outlet for crackpots? We already do have fields of chemical physics and physical chemistry...how much more hybrid can you get? And new fields of science come into being all the time...why on earth would you say that people here don't think they're possible? They just don't think unsupported science woo should be taken seriously.

[FreakinDJ]

28. Which ever it is We'll know more in a couple weeks

as other scientist attempt to reproduce their experiment and results

That is how we found out the pair in Utah were full of it

[caraher]

34. they were not physicists

Pons & Fleischman were chemists... not that physicists are automatically smarter than chemists. But they do tend to be better at physics, which is pretty clearly the corner of science where fusion lies.

Twenty years ago I was a cyclotron operator and we had quite a parade of chemists come by asking to borrow our neutron detector, all of whom had visions of reproducing the cold fusion results. Those of us with a physics background mostly held firm to our skepticism; it was not clear that they even knew what to look for.

[Canuckistanian]

19. Still waiting for my "Mr. Fusion"

And I'm getting rather impatient.

[truthisfreedom]

22. I've got a flux capacitor for sale.

Some of the flux is worn off but it still capacitates.

[Canuckistanian]

24. Does it generate 1.21 Gigawatts?

If not, I'm going to Craigslist.

[caseymoz]

25. Why wear a seatbelt when you're sitting in a car with a nuclear reaction?

Damn the adventure. You couldn't get me into one of those things.

[Canuckistanian]

30. Exactly my point

Stick it to the man.

[caseymoz]

23. Excuse me for being a little skeptical about this discovery,

But the materials they were using sounded like they were more expensive than all the poppies in Afghanistan: gold, palladium and deuterium. This experiment had some good funding.

[AlphaCentauri]

26. Sounds like another proposal for a bailout: Star wars II

I discovery of this magnitude would require a lot of money for future military projects, witch mean no cuts in the military expending. Also if this was true it could be used to produce energy for automobiles witch would eliminate much of the fossil fuel dependency and pollution but I'm skeptic about this discovery.

[L0oniX]

29. well ...I'm still working on spinning straw into gold. Almost got it working.

[Prospero1]

31. While I don't have....

the technical knowledge to evaluate the findings, it seems to me we should take into account the threat such technology would represent to the huge vested interests that want to sell us fuel for energy production. For example, we constantly hear in the mainstream media how wind and solar plants are more "expensive" than conventional (ie coal, oil, nuke) plants. While it may cost more per kilowatt to CONSTRUCT the total cost of operation over the life of renewable plants is much lower because you don't ever buy any fuel. This also ignores the cost of health and global warming effects of conventional systems. My point is there are folks out there who stand to lose a ton of money if cold fusion is practical and who already do everything they can to distort the discussion of existing technology. It is probably worthwhile to keep an open mind.

[Jamastiene]

40. Agreed.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[tomm2thumbs]

32. I personally like Fruit Fusion, but will settle for Odwalla

uh oh, I almost forgot, they are owned by a corporate giant (the Coca Cola Company) - time to start hunting down another real-juice company

[Oldtimeralso]

35. What is a Fruit Fusion?

I thought that it was a Ford Fusion. I drove one in the cold (-20F) and it was cold Fusion.

[Prometheus Bound]

36. Here's a clear explanation and background from New Scientist

Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion

.......The team used a low-tech particle detector: a plastic called CR-39 that is otherwise used for spectacle lenses. When CR-39 is bombarded with subatomic charged particles, a small pit forms in the material with each impact.

The researchers placed a sample of CR-39 in contact with a gold or nickel cathode in an electrochemical cell filled with a mixture of palladium chloride, lithium chloride and deuterium oxide (D2O), so-called "heavy water". When a current was passed through the cell, palladium and deuterium became deposited on the cathode.
Triple tracks

After two to three weeks, the team found a small number of "triple tracks" in the plastic – three 8-micrometre-wide pits radiating from a point (see diagram, top right). The team says such a pattern occurs when a high-energy neutron strikes a carbon atom inside the plastic and shatters it into three charged alpha particles that rip through the plastic leaving tracks. No such tracks were seen if the experiment was repeated using normal rather than heavy water.

Johan Frenje at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an expert at interpreting CR-39 tracks produced in conventional high-temperature fusion reactions, says the team's interpretation of what produced the tracks is valid.........
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-neutron-tracks-revive-hopes-for-cold-fusion.html

[MannyGoldstein]

42. Much More On This From The Clever Nerds At Slashdot:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/23/1853219&art_pos=8

[energyguy]

47. More Cold fusion News

I am skeptical about this news but I think there is more going on with cold fusion then we know. I recently came across a process called SuperWave Fusion that is also producing some interesting results. The company behind it says they have produced excess heat and 2 independent labs have replicated the process. Plus the NRL seems to be involved as well. Please check out there website
EnergeticsTechnologies.com
I would like to know what others think about this.

[Javaman]

44. Let me guess, public use is only 5 years away? LOL nt