Monday, May 26, 2008

Scientist Creates Cold Fusion For the First Time In Decades





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.

But the method Arata showed was "highly reproducible," according to eye witnesses of the event.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, until the "cold fusion effects" can be reproduced, many times, and the output energy is higher than the input energy, this experiment doesn't mean much of anything.

Since this has yet to be done, this announcement is rather premature. The smarter thing to have done would have been to do several runs, at differing laboratories, measuring output vs. input, prior to such announcements as this one. As this didn't occur, I'm rather skeptical.

Mac said...

Intense--

Same here. I just thought it warranted mention.

Anonymous said...

It wont be long before they crack cold fusion...but will it be soon enough with the energy crisis the world is facing at present?

Anonymous said...

Mac--

I agree it does warrant mention, as do my misgivings as to the practical viability of any such tech in the timeframe extant. Pons and Fleischmann "cried wolf" nearly 25 years ago, and impugned and delayed R&D efforts in that field by making unsubstantiated claims.

I fear Arata's claims, based on the available information, may be and could cause similar reaction. He's making irresponsible claims without substantial scientific proof or reproducibility so far.

And regardless of whether cold fusion can be technically proven, unless it can output significantly more energy than input, it has little real world value--a tempest in a teapot, as it were, not a solution to our energy problems.

Kcotae--

No, neither cold or hot fusion will be available soon enough to deal with the peak-oil crisis, for a variety of technological reasons.

The alternative to oil and coal for the mass production of energy is and will be for the forseeable future standard fission nuclear power--development plans are in progress world-wide now to widely implement nuclear power as our energy mainstay over the next 20 to 30 years until and unless there is some other technological breakthrough in fusion energy that can practically, ecologically, and economically replace fission energy.

Problem is, world-wide development of fission energy as a viable alternative to oil and coal based energy production requires uranium enrichment technologies to create fission fuel, and the same technologies can and are used to create nuclear weapon warheads.

I'd like to see an international, IAEA-enforced treaty for regulation and inspection with signatories from any nation that either has or plans to develop fission nuclear power, and internationally-supervised enriched uranium production facilities, paid for by states using or planning nuclear energy plants, to supply fuel.

That would go a long way to alleviate concerns over Iran's burgeoning nuclear energy plans, and possible diversion of enriched uranium fuel for weapons purposes.

We could and should also use the vast stockpiles of enriched uranium possessed by the US and Russia for these peaceful purposes, along with a reduction of nuclear weapons. In parallel, major R&D and investment should take place in energy conservation, and green energy alternatives such as improved wind and solar power tech.

There also needs to be vastly more emphasis and development of the means to immobilize and secure nuclear waste in some long-term manner, given the radioactive half-life of the end products of nuclear fission energy.

Of course, all of this requires a much greater degree of both international governmental and corporate cooperation and enforceable agreements. We really have no viable alternatives if this is not done. The consequences of a failure of will or action to implement a planetary energy plan and related policies is species extinction. The imperatives for survival are quite clear.