September 13, 2004
HEATING UP (via Robert Schwartz):
Cold Fusion Back From the Dead: U.S. Energy Department gives true believers a new hearing (JUSTIN MULLINS, 9/13/04, IEEE Spectrum)
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.
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.
Make oil expensive enough and research like this will get a huge boost. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 13, 2004 8:05 PM
"Hot" fusion has been getting strong support and funding for decades, even with continued negative results and fairly cheap oil.
Expensive fossil fuels are only necessary if one's area of research isn't sexy enough.
Zactly. This is of a piece with that toll-road brain fart of yours.
Posted by: joe shropshire at September 13, 2004 11:48 PMHighway taxes and gas taxes will cut oil consumption.
Posted by: oj at September 13, 2004 11:52 PMBefore spending more tax money on cold fusion, how about making some progress with all those billions spent yearly on hot fusion? The DOE has been building tokamak reactors for 30 years now, with very little to show for it.
Or transfer the money from hot to cold, I don't care. But no extra tax money unless they can show they are not just another govt research bureaucracy spinning their wheels. (Remember Jimmy Carter's billions for oil shale research by the Synfuels Corporation?)
Gideon is spot-on. I considered going to graduate school to study fusion in the early 1980s. One of my profs took me aside and said that fusion had been 5 years away from break-even for 25 years now (break-even being the point where you get as much energy out as put in). Nothing has changed. Even when break-even occurs, the reactors will be so complicated (an order of magnitude more complex than fission reactors) the power could not be sold at any reasonable price.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at September 14, 2004 6:03 AMMake water expensive enough and the shorter meetings will give productivity a huge boost.
I have no problem with the government giving a little bit of money to cold fusion research, because there is something unexplained going on there. Possibly, a few generations down the road, we'll have a new type of battery or something but most likely this will be research done just for the fun of doing research.
Posted by: David Cohen at September 14, 2004 7:47 AMMake it expensive enough to go to meetings and they'll stop having them, especially the ones folks fly to--a huge boost for productivity.
Posted by: oj at September 14, 2004 8:38 AM1) There is nothing wrong with using oil.
2) Oil is used because it is the cheapest and most convenient form of energy. This isn't for a want of research on other forms. Consider the research pressure on developing new battery technologies, driven by laptops, cell phones, and Teddy Ruxpin dolls. It's huge, but frankly, we are still stuck at energy density levels very close to what was available 40 years ago. The "backs up against a wall" motivation has worked in the past (synthetic rubber in ww2), but is no guarantee of anything.
Posted by: Mike at September 14, 2004 10:33 AMI knew Stanley Pons' father through some business dealings. I came to doubt the fathers charachter. I wondered about the sons' as well after the cold fusion fiasco. But it just won't go away.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 14, 2004 1:15 PMoj - You've come up with another good reason for keeping oil cheap!
Posted by: pj at September 14, 2004 1:56 PMIn this whole thread, has anybody bothered to figure out just WHAT is going on in the whole cold fusion phenomenon?
Posted by: Ken at September 14, 2004 6:11 PMNothing. N rays. Self-delusion, or, as likely, the straight con.
There are four levels of hoaxes, starting with the mere jape, and rising through the partisan lie meant to sell an ideology, and on to the partisan lie that the seller forgets was a con and starts believing himself (where Miller and Pons ended, I suspect) and ending with the straight con.
Orrin, we already have road and gas taxes, and we drive more than ever, so that part can't be right.
In fact, when the gas taxes went way up under Eisenhower, road travel grew exponentially.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 15, 2004 2:56 AMHarry:
we've the lowest in the developed world and drive most--a rational man would suspect a connection. However, I'll accept that we could raise them as high as we wanted to and not reduce driving one bit--then we should do so and tax this especially undesirable form of consumption, not income.
Posted by: oj at September 15, 2004 7:00 AMIf we don't desire it, why do we do it?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 15, 2004 3:01 PMWe do, so will have to be stopped.
Posted by: oj at September 15, 2004 3:07 PMWhy is it so undesirable?
Keep in mind the only alternative is densely concentrated cities and stack-a-prole flats.
Thank goodness for democracy.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at September 15, 2004 8:21 PMOrrin Judd, enemy of liberty
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 15, 2004 9:05 PMIf Oprah gave him a Hummer, he might just change his mind.
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 17, 2004 8:54 AM