Cold Fusion Back From the Dead

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: September 3, 2004 3:48:32 PM EDT
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Dave Farber 
<dave () farber net>
Subject: Cold Fusion Back From the Dead

Cold  Fusion Back From the Dead

U.S.  Energy Department gives true believers a new hearing
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/sep04/0904nfus.html

 Later  this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive  a report
from a panel of experts on the prospects for cold  fusion—the supposed
generation of thermonuclear energy  using tabletop apparatus. It's an
extraordinary reversal  of fortune: more than a few heads turned earlier
this year when James Decker, the deputy director of the DOE's Office  of
Science, announced that he was initiating the review  of cold fusion
science. Back in November 1989, it had been  the department's own
investigation that determined the  evidence behind cold fusion was
unconvincing. Clearly, something important has changed to grab the
department's  attention now.

The  cold fusion story began at a now infamous press conference  in 
March
1989. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, both  electrochemists 
working at
the University of Utah in Salt  Lake City, announced that they had 
created
fusion using  a battery connected to palladium electrodes immersed in  a
bath of water in which the hydrogen was replaced with  its isotope
deuterium—so-called heavy water. With  this claim came the idea that
tabletop fusion could produce  more or less unlimited, low-cost, clean
energy.

In physicists'  traditional view of fusion, forcing two deuterium nuclei
close enough together to allow them to fuse usually requires  
temperatures
of tens of millions of degrees Celsius. The claim that it could be done 
at
room temperature with a  couple of electrodes connected to a battery
stretched credulity  [see photo, "Too Good to Be True?"].

But  while some scientists reported being able to reproduce  the result
sporadically, many others reported negative  results, and cold fusion 
soon
took on the stigma of junk  science.

Today  the mainstream view is that champions of cold fusion are  little
better than purveyors of snake oil and good luck  charms. Critics say 
that
the extravagant claims behind  cold fusion need to be backed with
exceptionally strong  evidence, and that such evidence simply has not
materialized. "To  my knowledge, nothing has changed that makes cold 
fusion
worth a second look," says Steven Koonin, a member of the  panel that
evaluated cold fusion for the DOE back in 1989,  who is now chief 
scientist
at BP, the London-based energy  company.

 Because  of such attitudes, science has all but ignored the phenomenon 
 for
15 years. But a small group of dedicated researchers  have continued to
investigate it. For them, the DOE's change  of heart is a crucial step
toward being accepted back into  the scientific fold. Behind the scenes,
scientists in many  countries, but particularly in the United States, 
Japan,
and Italy, have been working quietly for more than a decade  to 
understand
the science behind cold fusion. (Today they call it low-energy nuclear
reactions, or sometimes chemically  assisted nuclear reactions.) For 
them,
the department's  change of heart is simply a recognition of what they 
have
said all along—whatever cold fusion may be, it needs  explaining by the
proper process of science.

 THE  FIRST HINT that the tide may be changing came  in February 2002, 
when
the U.S. Navy revealed that its  researchers had been studying cold 
fusion
on the quiet  more or less continuously since the debacle began. Much  
of
this work was carried out at the Space and Naval Warfare  Systems 
Center in
San Diego, where the idea of generating  energy from sea water—a good 
source
of heavy water—may  have seemed more captivating than at other 
laboratories.

 Many  researchers at the center had worked with Fleischmann,  a
well-respected electrochemist, and found it hard to believe  that he was
completely mistaken. What's more, the Navy  encouraged a culture of
risk-taking in research and made  available small amounts of funding for
researchers to pursue  their own interests.

At San  Diego and other research centers, scientists built up an  
impressive
body of evidence that something strange happened  when a current passed
through palladium electrodes placed  in heavy water.

 And  by 2002, a number of Navy scientists believed it was time  to 
throw
down the gauntlet. A two-volume report, entitled "Thermal  and nuclear
aspects of the Pd/D2O system," contained a remarkable plea for proper
funding from Frank Gordon, the  head of navigation and applied science 
at
the Navy center. "It  is time that this phenomenon be investigated so 
that
we  can reap whatever benefits accrue from scientific understanding.  
It is
time for government funding agencies to invest in  this research," he 
wrote.
The report was noted by the DOE  but appeared to have little impact.

 Then,  last August, in a small hotel near the Massachusetts Institute  
of
Technology, in Cambridge, some 150 engineers and scientists  met for the
Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion.  Conference observers 
were
struck by the careful way in  which various early criticisms of the 
research
were being  addressed. Over the years, a number of groups around the 
world
have reproduced the original Pons-Fleischmann excess  heat effect, 
yielding
sometimes as much as 250 percent  of the energy put in.

 To be  sure, excess energy by itself is not enough to establish  that
fusion is taking place. In addition to energy, critics  are quick to
emphasize, the fusion of deuterium nuclei  should produce other 
byproducts,
such as helium and the  hydrogen isotope tritium. Evidence of these
byproducts has been scant, though Antonella de Ninno and colleagues  
from
the Italian National Agency for New Technologies Energy  and the
Environment, in Rome, have found strong evidence  of helium generation 
when
the palladium cells are producing  excess heat but not otherwise.

Other  researchers are finally beginning to explain why the 
Pons-Fleischmann
effect has been difficult to reproduce. Mike McKubre from  SRI
International, in Menlo Park, Calif., a respected researcher  who is
influential among those pursuing cold fusion, says  that the effect can 
be
reliably seen only once the palladium  electrodes are packed with 
deuterium
at ratios of 100 percent—one  deuterium atom for every palladium atom. 
His
work shows  that if the ratio drops by as little as 10 points, to 90
percent, only 2 experimental runs in 12 produce excess  heat, while all 
runs
at a ratio of 100 percent produce  excess heat.

And  scientists are beginning to get a better handle on exactly  how the
effect occurs. Stanislaw Szpak and colleagues from  the Space and Naval
Warfare Systems Command have taken infrared video images of palladium
electrodes as they produce  excess energy. It turns out that the heat 
is not
produced  continuously over the entire electrode but only in hot  spots 
that
erupt and then die on the electrode surface.  This team also has 
evidence of
curious mini-explosions  on the surface.

Fleischmann,  who is still involved in cold fusion as an advisor to a
number of groups, feels vindicated. He told the conference: "I  believe 
that
the work carried out thus far amply illustrates that there is a new and
richly varied field of research  waiting to be explored." (Pons is no 
longer
involved in  the field, having dropped from view after a laboratory  he
joined in southern France ceased operations.)

For  Peter Hagelstein, an electrical engineer at MIT who works  on the
theory behind cold fusion and who chaired the August  2003 conference, 
the
quality of the papers was hugely significant. "It's  obvious that there 
are
effects going on," he says. He and  two colleagues believed the results 
were
so strong that  they were worth drawing to the attention of the DOE, and
late last year they secured a meeting with the department's  Decker.

It was  a meeting that paid off dramatically. The review will give  cold
fusion researchers a chance—perhaps their last—to  show their mettle. 
The
department has yet to decide just  what will be done and by whom. There 
is
no guarantee of  funding or of future support. But for a discipline 
whose
name has become a byword for junk science, the DOE's review  is a big
opportunit
--
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com


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