Science: an update on cold fusion

In 1989, a research team at the University of Utah reported that they had produced unexplained excess energy during their electrolysis research.  The Wikipedia article on cold fusion describes their results thus:

Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, then one of the world's leading electrochemists, [reported] that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat ("excess heat"), of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including including neutrons and tritium. The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode..

Here is a simple example of the lab setup for electrolysis:

The media flocked to the prospect of a cheap source of energy that didn't require depletable products.  But most physicists were skeptical, especially of any reaction that produced more energy than what was put in.  The reported results could not be reproduced by other labs; and eventually Pons and Fleischmann were discredited.  However, some groups continued to experiment, particularly the U.S. Navy and New Hydrogen Energy Institute in Japan.

Here is an image of the setup used by the researchers in Japan:

The Wikipedia article further states:

After 1991, cold fusion research continued in relative obscurity, conducted by groups that had increasing difficulty securing public funding and keeping programs open. Research continues today in a few specific venues, but the wider scientific community has generally marginalized the research being done and researchers have had difficulty publishing in mainstream journals.

The Japanese group has discontinued work on cold fusion, but the groups that have continued have renamed their efforts to avoid the negative reactions of the scientific community to the term cold fusion.  The new nomenclature includes:

 ...Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) or Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions (CANR), also Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions (LANR), Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (CMNS) and Lattice Enabled Nuclear Reactions... --Wikipedia

The U.S. Navy has a library of papers on this topic at LENR-CANR.org.

What do you think -- is it the real thing this time?

-- Marge 

Just a soupçon of science for today

If you have an inquiring mind and like to be surprised, take a look at Science Daily.  Here are the titles and links to 4 of the articles available now:

• Acid-Wielding Worms Drill Through Bones
• Printing Living Tissues Made of Sugar (another use of 3D printing)
• Lizard-Like Robot Uses Tail to Land On Feet
• New Light Shed On Explosive Solar Activity -- "Extreme solar activity can lead to severe space storms that interfere with satellite communications and damage electric power transmission grids on Earth."

Looking at the last article, about solar activity, reminded me that I've been wanting to know how the quest for power generation by fusion is going.  Fusion promises to produce power cleanly, with no radioactive waste for disposal or threat of reactor meltdown.  But developing a reactor that produces more energy than it uses has been a problem.

This site ITER  ("The Way" in Latin) gives some very good information about fusion. ITER is an actual device; the demo is being built now. Take a look at the 60 years of progress page:

Steady progress has been made since in fusion devices around the world. The Tore Supra Tokamak that is part of the Cadarache nuclear research centre holds the record for the longest plasma duration time of any tokamak: six minutes and 30 seconds. The Japanese JT-60 achieved the highest value of fusion triple product—density, temperature, confinement time—of any device to date. US fusion installations have reached temperatures of several hundred million degrees Celsius.

 Achievements like these have led fusion science to an exciting threshold: the long sought-after plasma energy breakeven point. Breakeven describes the moment when plasmas in a fusion device release at least as much energy as is required to produce them. Plasma energy breakeven has never been achieved: the current record for energy release is held by JET, which succeeded in generating 70 percent of input power. Scientists have now designed the next-step device—ITER—which will produce more power than it consumes: for 50 MW of input power, 500 MW of output power will be produced.

Fusion research has increased key fusion plasma performance parameters by a factor of 10,000 over 50 years; research is now less than a factor of 10 away from producing the core of a fusion power plant.

-- Marge