More Interesting News on the Cold Fusion Front

[BillyBobUSA]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-roomtemperature-fusion-in-from-the-cold.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
Twenty years to the day that two electrochemists ignited controversy by announcing signs of cold fusion at an infamous press conference in Utah (watch a video of the 1989 event), a separate team has made a similar claim in the same US state. But this time, the evidence is being taken more seriously.

Back in 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons at the University of Utah announced the tantalising prospect of abundant, almost-free energy, but their claims of fusion reactions in a tabletop experiment were dismissed by nuclear physicists, not least because such reactions normally occur inside stars.

The few watts of extra energy they found were widely considered a fluke.


Now Pamela Mosier-Boss and colleagues at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California, are claiming to have made a "significant" discovery – clear evidence of the products of cold fusion.

On 23 March, the team presented its work at the American Chemical Society's spring conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, a few months after the study was published in a peer-reviewed journal (Naturwissenschaft, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-008-0449-x).

Maybe Cold Fusion is making a come-back?

That would be interesting but the Energy corporations will do everything they can to kill this thing dead before that if its real.

[nebcon]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-roomtemperature-fusion-in-from-the-cold.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news


Maybe Cold Fusion is making a come-back?

That would be interesting but the Energy corporations will do everything they can to kill this thing dead before that if its real.

Oh don't get all tin foil hat on us here. There is no secret car that runs on water that the energy companies don't want you to know about. No such technology exists that hasn't run up against cost, distribution, or technical difficulties that has prevented it from reaching the market. No conspiracy, just the reality of science. None of this stuff can be pulled straight out of the lab and used immediately. No product is introduced that way. Changing the world over to something other than what it has been using for energy needs for more than a century isn't going to happen overnight. It seems as though everyone expects it to.

[Wookinstien]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-roomtemperature-fusion-in-from-the-cold.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news


Maybe Cold Fusion is making a come-back?

That would be interesting but the Energy corporations will do everything they can to kill this thing dead before that if its real.

See I think it would be the opposite. I believe the energy companies would scramble to embrace the new tech, for PR reasons alone. Could you imagine the buzz and the swarm of people wanting to snatch up their stock as quickly as possible.

[PeterGriffin]

Just like skinny leather ties, violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics always comes back into fashion.

[nebcon]

See I think it would be the opposite. I believe the energy companies would scramble to embrace the new tech, for PR reasons alone. Could you imagine the buzz and the swarm of people wanting to snatch up their stock as quickly as possible.

They know that, and they do invest in that tech. Being energy companies however, they know that the tech has to be ready and working, it has to have some sort of reasonable distribution model that doesn't cost more than it produces, and the materials used have to be easy to find and plentiful.

Carbon nanotubes are an excellent example. They have huge potential and work in the lab, but the mass production process is still being worked on. Developing that process takes as long at times as developing the concept in the first place. It's not the fault of the engineers that work on this stuff that we dragged our feet so long on energy independence. One political side of the energy issue seems to want to push this stuff out before it's ready and the other side wants to dismiss it as a fantasy. Neither one of them is right.

[JohnCraven]

Whenever energy prices go through the roof, ideas like
cold fusion come back to life. Whether they would actually
work I have no idea.

But what we should be talking about and which was first discovered by the Russians in the 1950s and most recently rediscovered by the Israelis is that what has long been called "fossil fuel" - namely petroleum oil - is not a fossil fuel at all but is made by the earth itself from non-biological sources - that is it is a renewable resource and it doesn't have finite limits.

The earth has been found to actually replenish oil in resevoirs that have been drilled dry of oil.

This is a truly major story which has been kept in the dark - not by energy companies but by the "environmentalist wackos" both in and out of government and in the news media at large.

Do any of you all realize how cheap oil and gasoline would be if it were seen as the renewable resource that it is?

JohnCraven
New Orleans:flag:

[waynevan]

Oh don't get all tin foil hat on us here. There is no secret car that runs on water that the energy companies don't want you to know about. No such technology exists that hasn't run up against cost, distribution, or technical difficulties that has prevented it from reaching the market. No conspiracy, just the reality of science. None of this stuff can be pulled straight out of the lab and used immediately. No product is introduced that way. Changing the world over to something other than what it has been using for energy needs for more than a century isn't going to happen overnight. It seems as though everyone expects it to.

Well, forty years of research isn't exactly "overnight'.

[waynevan]

Just like skinny leather ties, violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics always comes back into fashion.

Oh Peter, they are not spending billions of dollars on research that violates the laws of physics. Give it a rest. Nobody is trying to "create" energy, they are simply trying to extract already existing energy. Its really not much different than trying to find an economical way to extract hydrogen from water. The energy is in there, we just have to get it out somehow.

[BillyBobUSA]

Oh don't get all tin foil hat on us here. There is no secret car that runs on water that the energy companies don't want you to know about. No such technology exists that hasn't run up against cost, distribution, or technical difficulties that has prevented it from reaching the market. No conspiracy, just the reality of science.

Umm, actually corporations have bought texhnologies and buried them from the public or had them banned by law.

None of this stuff can be pulled straight out of the lab and used immediately. No product is introduced that way.

True, but not the point I was making.

If enough industries are affected by a technology corporations will either buy it and bury it or get Congress to ban it or tax it into disuse.


Changing the world over to something other than what it has been using for energy needs for more than a century isn't going to happen overnight. It seems as though everyone expects it to.

Of course not, but corporations do tend to take the long view on technologies that threaten their livelihood.

[BillyBobUSA]

See I think it would be the opposite. I believe the energy companies would scramble to embrace the new tech, for PR reasons alone. Could you imagine the buzz and the swarm of people wanting to snatch up their stock as quickly as possible.


How would the corporations 'drink your milkshake' if you could fill your car with tap water?

[gwhughes]

By selling you the blender.

[BillyBobUSA]

By selling you the blender.

Whats the point of blending water?

[nebcon]

Umm, actually corporations have bought texhnologies and buried them from the public or had them banned by law.

very rarely has that ever been technology that would revolutionize any industry. In the case of the legendary car that supposedly runs on water, it's bunk. The only fuel water can produce is hydrogen, and that process takes far too long and takes far too much energy to be useful.

[Clamp]

Whats the point of blending water?

Not everyone is capable of, or inclined to distill their own water. If I put my tap water in a water powered car, I'd be changing the filter weekly. Iron & Lime are the culprits here.

Although a weekly filter change would be cheaper then filling the tank at the station... :)

I see a filter tax on the horizon.

[BillyBobUSA]

very rarely has that ever been technology that would revolutionize any industry. In the case of the legendary car that supposedly runs on water, it's bunk. The only fuel water can produce is hydrogen, and that process takes far too long and takes far too much energy to be useful.

This is a classical red herring.

I am not discussing cars that run on water, lol.

[BillyBobUSA]

Not everyone is capable of, or inclined to distill their own water. If I put my tap water in a water powered car, I'd be changing the filter weekly. Iron & Lime are the culprits here.

Although a weekly filter change would be cheaper then filling the tank at the station... :)

I see a filter tax on the horizon.


:lol:

You maybe right.

If change comes, the elites will find a way of taking some money out of our hides no matter what.

[ThrowCop]

Just like skinny leather ties, violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics always comes back into fashion.Except that as a concept, cold fusion does not violate the Law.

Probably not going to happen in this century but we can hope.

[BillyBobUSA]

Except that as a concept, cold fusion does not violate the Law.

Probably not going to happen in this century but we can hope.


Whats wrong with hope?

We are still foggy on how physics and QM inter-relate it seems.

Maybe all this will make sense some day in theoretical physics, but if its like most major historical discoveries, it will explain what engineers actually do rather than leading the way for them.

[Fire Watch]

So..is this like sticking your tongue on a flagpole in freezing temps..because if so..I may have already accomplished it.

[BillyBobUSA]

So..is this like sticking your tongue on a flagpole in freezing temps..because if so..I may have already accomplished it.


:lol:

Not really, but you would think it from all the hyper-criticism directed at the very notion of cold fusion.

[ThrowCop]

Whats wrong with hope?

We are still foggy on how physics and QM inter-relate it seems.

Maybe all this will make sense some day in theoretical physics, but if its like most major historical discoveries, it will explain what engineers actually do rather than leading the way for them.I am on board with the research 100%. I suspect we will see some progress in the lab in our lifetime. Once that happens the potential will mean a race to practical implementation.

[Fire Watch]

Whats wrong with hope?

Hope got us ObamaNero. Then again, Bob Hope was pretty cool.

[BillyBobUSA]

I am on board with the research 100%. I suspect we will see some progress in the lab in our lifetime. Once that happens the potential will mean a race to practical implementation.

Agreed.

The potential seems too huge to pass it by due to skeptical knee jerks.

[BillyBobUSA]

Hope got us ObamaNero. Then again, Bob Hope was pretty cool.

Obama has lots of hope and I hope he gets some things right.

Batting about .050 right now though, IMO.

And Bob Hope was a heroic, selfless entertainer who gave and gave and gave of himself.

We could use a lot more like him today; thats for sure.

[Samm]

It was 20 years ago today (yesterday actually) that a breakthrough was announced regarding Cold Fusion (ironically on the same day that the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef) but that turned out to be a fraud... or at least unreplicatable. And by coincidence, another such announcement was made today (again, yesterday actually.)

http://esciencenews.com/sources/science.blog/2009/03/24/u.s.navy.scientists.claim.cold.fusion.breakthrough

[BillyBobUSA]

It was 20 years ago today (yesterday actually) that a breakthrough was announced regarding Cold Fusion (ironically on the same day that the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef) but that turned out to be a fraud... or at least unreplicatable. And by coincidence, another such announcement was made today (again, yesterday actually.)

http://esciencenews.com/sources/science.blog/2009/03/24/u.s.navy.scientists.claim.cold.fusion.breakthrough


Yeah, I think 'fraud' is too harsh a word for what Fleishman and Pons did. Essentially, as I understand it, they did not go through a peer review process prior to announcing their 'discovery' to the public.

Hence they were caught flat-footed when others could not replicate their experiment and so they were publicaly humiliated. Turns out that there are other variables than the ones they thought essential but happened by chance to get right.

I still think that it is likely that 50 years from now they will be remembered right alongside the Wright brothers and Tesla.