Cold fusion: are our energy problems over?

[Rex_Goodheart]

This just might be GIGANTIC news:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/06/cold-fusion-fact-or-fantasy.html

[bronxiteforever]

1. Kick & R-You are right could be a world changer-

[MannyGoldstein]

2. More Info:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/24/0345245

Sounds dicey, but possible.

[Warpy]

3. It's one of those things I'll wait to see reproduced

both by other laboratories and then in a large scale setup.

I'm hopeful but unconvinced right now. I have seen other processes that look more promising than a purely catalytic one, which is what this seems to be.

[Phoonzang]

4. Too many dissapointments.

Would be nice, but I'm not going to keep my hopes up.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. About every 20 years someone discovers cold fusion, then they don't.

[Orrex]

6. Which one of you stole my perpetual motion engine?

It was right on the shelf next to my zero-point energy generator.



I'll believe this when we see it confirmed independently.

[Canuckistanian]

7. I had a look at this for a laugh

Until I saw that PhysicsWorld is taking this seriously (so far).

http://physicsworld.com/blog/2008/05/coldfusion_demonstration_a_suc_1.html

It looks reproducible and Arata used THREE control experiments that showed no excess heat production.

You can see the real and amateur scientists duking it out in the comments section, some admitting this might be something and others that it's 1989 (Fleishman and Pons) all over again.

[roguevalley]

8. I hope so. truly. the future looks so bad otherwise.

[rurallib]

14. The future could use a major burnish couldn't it?

[roguevalley]

18. truly. I'm glad I'm not young. :0)

[Peregrine]

9. I tend to mistrust media science

When scientists start to do "demonstrations" to the media, before their experimental findings have been reviewed and verified, I tend to believe that the outcome is due to something other than true science.

[Rex_Goodheart]

10. I think it's wise to be skeptical...

about EVERYTHING.

[skids]

12. These days it has gotten so bad...

...even the skepticism deserves skepticism. :-)

Someday maybe we'll have a population that was reared with honesty as a value again.

[MonkeyFunk]

19. I think that's an excellent point

Has he published his findings for peer review? It seems odd to hold a press conference instead of following the normal route.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

11. U.S. Navy scientists supposedly have obtained interesting results

http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/101ns_001.htm

And they've published them in scientific peer-reviewed journals.

"...Electrochemists Pamela Mosier-Boss and Stanislaw Szpak at the San Diego centre's navigation and applied sciences department were intrigued. Fortunately, so was Gordon, their boss, who provided limited funding for experiments. Mosier-Boss and Szpak have now run hundreds of tests at weekends and during their spare moments, and have published more than a dozen papers in various peer-reviewed journals (New Scientist, 29 March 2003, p 36).

Typically, these table-top experiments have involved lowering an electrode made of the precious metal palladium into a solution of an inert salt dissolved in "heavy water" - in which a large proportion of the hydrogen atoms are of the element's heavy isotope deuterium. In deuterium, the atomic nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the usual single proton.

When an electric current is passed through the solution, deuterium atoms start to pack into spaces in the palladium's lattice-like atomic framework. Eventually, after a period of days or weeks, there is approximately one deuterium atom for each palladium atom, at which point things start to happen.

Quite what happens or why isn't clear. Whatever it is appears to release more energy, as heat, than the experiment consumes. Proponents of cold fusion claim that the excess energy comes from a nuclear fusion reaction involving the deuterium nuclei. ..."

[sudopod]

13. How the hell does an electric current

make nucleons stick together? Really?

[The River]

15. I'm Still Waiting

for a "Mr. Fusion" add-on to power my flying car.

But seriously, science happens.
Most of what we take for granted today
was undreamed of a few generations ago.

The idea is out there.
Eventually it will become manifest.

[Ian David]

16. I call Bullshit. The article cites Fleishmann and Pons as possibly having positive results.

In fact, Fleishmann and Pons have become universally recognized as THE prime example of well-intentioned scientific folly.

Arata's experiment would mark the first time anyone has witnessed cold fusion since 1989, when Martin Fleishmann and Stanely Pons supposedly observed excess heat during electrolysis of heavy water with palladium electrodes. When they and other researchers were unable to make it work again, cold fusion became synonymous with bad science.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/06/cold-fusion-fact-or-fantasy.html


Sorry, but this is complete and utter bullshit.

[Donkey_Punch_Dubya]

20. A great book about this and other pseudoscience is Voodoo Science

It describes how things really went down with Pons and Fleishmann, basically a young sycophant and and older scientist with wild ideas. The book also talks about other fraud science and pseudo science, including homeophathy, perpetual motion machines, and others. Written by Robert Park in 2000.

If the researchers in this case refuse peer review, refuse to provide any info to other scientist trying to replicate it, close ranks, and deal only with press releases, then this is another Pons and Fleishman fraud situation. I hope it's legit.

[Ian David]

21. I have that book! I read it years ago.

I'm not going to say that cold fusion is impossible.

However, I'm not going out on a limb when I say that following the Fleischman & Pons roadmap to cold fusion is beyond ignorant.

[Prophet 451]

17. Ker-rist! If this is for real...

If this is on the level and it's reproducable and everything can be checked then, Lord, this changes everything.