LOW ENERGY NUCLEAR REACTIONS:
The Information Fundamental Source

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, The Information Fundamental Source (AIP Information)

[Ed. The new book, edited by Jan Marwan, has much experimental information, as well.]

"A large collaboration of physicists working at the Fermilab Tevatron particle collider ... found that colliding protons in their experiment produced short-lived B meson particles that almost immediately broke down into debris that included slightly more matter than antimatter. This sort of matter/antimatter asymmetry accounts for the fact that just about all the material in the universe is made of the normal matter we're familiar with. .... The Tevatron experiments suggest that we are on the verge of accounting for the quantities of matter that exist today. But the truly exciting implication is that the experiment implies that there is new physics, beyond the widely accepted Standard Model, that must be at work."

BING SEARCH ON COLD FUSION

Washington, DC - A Government Accountability Office report released Thursday shows that the Department of Energy has spent more than $1.9 billion in stimulus funds to create 10,018 jobs through May, an average of $194,213 spent per full-time job created."

College Park, MD -  "We are looking for ways to build magnetic systems that can manipulate atoms ... by using soft ferromagnetic materials, in the form of nanostructures, we can manipulate the material properties and direct atoms." The researchers describe the design, fabrication and characterization of a mirror formed by the magnetic field created by domain walls within an array of undulating planar magnetic nanowires. Due to the undulation of the wires, the field is switchable. When a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the wires, the domain walls switches on; when a field is applied parallel to the wires, the switch turns off. Essentially, the system becomes a logical mirror with 0 and 1 states..... Similar technology could be applied to devices that trap and confine atoms and possibly to devices that use individual atoms as qubits."

Berkeley Lab - "An international team of scientists ... has used ultrashort flashes of laser light to directly observe the movement of an atom’s outer electrons for the first time.
“With a simple system of krypton atoms, we demonstrated, for the first time, that we can measure transient absorption dynamics with attosecond pulses,” says Stephen Leone of Berkeley Lab ...“This revealed details of a type of electronic motion – coherent superposition – that can control properties in many systems.” ... The team’s demonstration of attosecond absorption spectroscopy began by first ionizing krypton atoms, removing one or more outer valence electrons with pulses of near-infrared laser light that were typically measured on timescales of a few femtoseconds (a femtosecond is 10-15 second, a quadrillionth of a second). Then, with far shorter pulses of extreme ultraviolet light on the 100-attosecond timescale (an attosecond is 10-18 second, a quintillionth of a second), they were able to precisely measure the effects on the valence electron orbitals."

[Ed. Though uncited, Widom Larsen use the prior theories of Hagelstein, Mizuno, Iwamura and Swartz, as discussed below].

ScienceDaily    "A new process that simultaneously combines the light and heat of solar radiation to generate electricity could offer more than double the efficiency of existing solar cell technology... called "photon enhanced thermionic emission," or PETE .... Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels -- which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises -- the new process excels at higher temperatures.  .... Most photovoltaic cells, such as those used in rooftop solar panels, use the semiconducting material silicon to convert the energy from photons of light to electricity. But the cells can only use a portion of the light spectrum, with the rest just generating heat. This heat from unused sunlight and inefficiencies in the cells themselves account for a loss of more than 50 percent of the initial solar energy reaching the cell. Because PETE performs best at temperatures well in excess of what a rooftop solar panel would reach, the devices will work best in solar concentrators such as parabolic dishes, which can get as hot as 800 degrees C. .... Melosh calculates the PETE process can get to 50 percent efficiency or more under solar concentration, but if combined with a thermal conversion cycle, could reach 55 or even 60 percent -- almost triple the efficiency of existing systems."

College Park, MD  -- "The research team chose to study barium fluoride (BaF2), a naturally occurring mineral, also known as "Frankdicksonite," as an option. They examined water adsorption on BaF2 (111) surfaces under ambient conditions using different scanning force microscopy modes and optical microscopy to zoom in on the role atomic steps play in the structure of water films, which can affect the stabilization of water bilayers and, ultimately, condensation.Despite having the desired hexagonal structure, BaF2 turned out to be a poor ice-nucleating material. But oddly enough, other researchers had discovered that when the mineral's surface has defects, its condensation efficiency is enhanced."

Constitution of the United States     A History 

Article 1 Section 8. 
"The Congress shall have power .... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

"The sceptics have been pouring cold water on cold fusion ever since the phenomenon was first reported by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in 1989. ... Richard Milton, however, set the record straight, telling his audience at the SPR that contrary to popular belief, not only is cold fusion still being researched in many laboratories but some scientists are producing impressive results. "100 universities in 10 countries have reproduced it," ... Edge Science, a quarterly magazine available online that is published by The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE). ..deals in depth with an unclassified, eight-page, Defense Analysis Report on the topic, produced by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) .... The DIA says "Japan and Italy are leaders in the field, although Russia, China, Israel and India are devoting significant resources to this work in the hope of finding a new clean energy source." The United States is notably missing from this list, a side effect surely of the sceptical brigade."

"Juelich researchers want to demonstrate the electric dipole moment of the electron in cooperation with colleagues in the USA and the Czech Republic. .... an entire range of physical theories that go beyond the standard model of elementary particle physics are based upon the existence of dipole moment. These theories in turn would explain how the universe in the form that we know it could have been created in the first place. According to prevailing theories, the big bang some 13.7 billion years ago would have had to have created just as much matter as antimatter. Since both obliterate each other, nothing would have remained. In reality, however, more matter than antimatter was actually created. An electric dipole moment of the electron could explain this imbalance.
 ... The researchers in Yale have developed an experimental setup that uses an extremely sensitive SQUID magnetometer to measure the magnetization of the piece of ceramic in an electric field. Their aim is to demonstrate a change in the magnetization when the electric field is reversed. This would simultaneously be the sought-after evidence that the electric dipole moment exists."

Physicists explain why superconductors fail to produce super currents
GAINESVILLE, Fla. "(R)esearchers for the first time describe precisely how the atomic-level structural elements of high-temperature ceramic superconductors serve to impede electrical current. Their explanation for how "grain boundaries" separating rows of atoms within superconductors impede current is the first to fit a phenomenon that has helped keep the superconductors from reaching their vaunted potential"

Nuclear Reactor Aims for Self-Sustaining Fusion
Italian-Russian reactor could be the first to reach a major milestone.
     Technology Review        Phil McKenna
   "In a few years, an experimental nuclear fusion reactor near Moscow could be the first to yield a self-sustaining fusion reaction. .... The proposed reactor is based on a design developed by Bruno Coppi, a professor of physics at MIT, and principal investigator on the reactor project with Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment. ...
Ignitor is a tokamak reactor, a doughnut-shaped device that uses powerful magnetic fields to produce fusion by squeezing superheated plasma of hydrogen isotopes. As an electric current and high-frequency radio waves pass through the plasma, heating it to extreme temperatures, the surrounding electromagnetic field confines the plasma under high pressure. The combined pressure and heat causes the hydrogen nuclei to fuse together to form helium in a process that releases tremendous amounts of heat. In a fully functional fusion reactor, this heat would be used to power an electricity-generating turbine."

"50 years from now, when you look back at your life,
don't you want to say you had the guts to study cold fusion?"

"Oil, coal and natural gas now supply about 85% of America's energy needs. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects energy consumption to grow only an average of 0.5% annually from 2008 to 2035, but that's still a 14% cumulative increase. Fossil fuel usage would increase slightly in 2035, and its share would still account for 78% of the total. ... Although wind, solar and biomass are assumed to grow up to 10 times faster than overall energy use, they provide only 11% of supply in 2035, up from 5% in 2008."

Baltimore - "Maryland is using more than $500,000 in federal stimulus money to build at least 64 charging stations for electric vehicles....Another $500,000 will go toward wiring truck stops so truckers won't have to rely on their diesel engines to provide electricity while parked."

For Gulf, Biofuels Are Worse Than Oil Spill
Investors Business Daily 
"Hypoxia, or oxygen depletion, caused by agricultural runoff in the Mississippi River Basin varies from year to year, but it has been on an upward trend as acreage for corn destined to become ethanol increases. As Steven Hayward reports in the Weekly Standard, a 2008 study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) found that "nitrogen leaching from fertilized cornfields in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River system is a primary cause of the bottom-water hypoxia that develops on the continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico each summer."

Witness describes brutal Mallove killing
Greg Smith - Norwich Bulletin 
 Testimony: Mallove begged assailants for help
      Karen Florin - The Day
Accused: Dying Dr. Mallove begged for help

     Info.com on the Murder of Dr. Mallove

The Day - "The man accused in the 2004 death of prominent scientist Eugene Mallove was assigned a public defender when he made his first appearance Monday in the New London court where major crimes are tried.  Chad M. Schaffer, 32, was charged April 1 with murder, first-degree robbery and felony murder. He is accused in the beating death of Mallove, 56, who was cleaning out his mother's home at 119 Salem Turnpike on May 14, 2004. .... Schaffer, a restaurant worker who is being held on a $10 million bond, cannot afford to pay an attorney to represent him."

"On March 30 the collider set a new speed record for slamming particles together. When at full power in a few years, scientists hope to find confirmation of the existence of dark matter that, though it can't be observed, exerts a tremendous gravitational pull - the so-called "God particle" that would explain the existence of mass in the universe - and anti-matter, particles that annihilate particles with the opposite electric charge when they encounter them. ... A few weeks ago, at the American Chemical Society's meeting in San Francisco, researchers presented the results of their cold fusion experiments. Among the labs that found evidence that the reactions exist was the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare systems Center in San Diego, Calif."

Union Leader Apr. 2, 2010 - 
PEMBROKE – "A longtime colleague of Eugene Mallove expressed joy and relief this morning upon hearing the news of two arrests in Mallove's six-year-old homicide. ...Frazier, who worked with Mallove in the four years before he died, says she and other magazine employees have worked hard to carry on Mallove's legacy....The murder investigation has taken several dramatic turns since it began. Shortly after Mallove's death, police arrested Joseph Reilly and Gary McAvoy in connection with the killing, but later exonerated them after DNA evidence proved blood on their clothing did not belong to Mallove. The men allegedly admitted to police they broke into several homes near the murder scene during a crack cocaine-fueled binge. Schaffer and Foster are expected to be arraigned in court Monday, when more details of the case are expected to be released. "The investigators have been thorough and dedicated, so we are confident the new advances will have a more positive outcome than previously," Frazier said. "We await the day Gene and his family can have true justice with the reading of a guilty verdict."

"In the nearly six years since the murder of her husband, Joanne Mallove had lost hope that someone would ever pay for the crime. Her husband, Eugene, was killed May 14, 2004. Four years later, charges against two men who were initially charged with the killing were dismissed.
But Thursday, after renewed efforts in the investigation, Norwich police charged a man and a woman with Eugene Mallove's murder. "We were just so stunned," Mallove said. "We felt we would never see an outcome. We are very grateful that an arrest was made. Police said they would not give up and they didn't." Mallove said she believed the pair rented Eugene Mallove's mother's home at 119 Salem Turnpike, where he was found beaten to death. .... "They were told they needed to get out," she said. "Gene wanted to fix it up." . Joanne Mallove said she wanted to accompany her husband to Norwich, but asked him to wait until the next day, a Saturday, so they "could make a day of it." Mallove said she told her husband that they could clean up the house and then go out to eat and to the casino.
Schaffer previously was convicted in Connecticut for second-degree threatening, violation of a restraining order and violation of probation. Foster does not appear to have a criminal record in Connecticut.\"
 

RSC Chemistry World - "A fundamentally new type of power generation may be on the horizon thanks to researchers in the US and Korea who have created a nanotube 'fuse' that harnesses the energy from chemical reactions. Michael Strano and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, and Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, have now demonstrated such a reaction wave. What's more, they have shown how it can create a parallel 'thermopower wave' to convert an exothermic reaction's heat into electricity. ....To create their device, Strano's group wraps a 7nm-thick layer of fuel known as cyclotrimethylene trinitramine (TNA) around a nanotube. After the TNA is ignited, the reaction wave begins to travel through the structure while coupling back to unspent TNA - like a 'fuse on steroids', according to Strano. In turn, this feedback creates the thermopower wave, which generates a parallel electrical current. 

The 15th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science was held in Rome, Italy, October 5 - 9, 2009 sponsored by the ENEA, and the Italian Physical Society. 

R&D - "Welding uses heat to join pieces of metal in everything from circuits to skyscrapers. But Rice Univ. researchers have found a way to beat the heat on the nanoscale. Jun Lou, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and materials science, and his group have discovered that gold wires between three-billionths and 10-billionths of a meter wide weld themselves together quite nicely—without heat. They report in today's online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology that clean gold nanowires with identical atomic structures will merge into a single wire that loses none of its electrical and mechanical properties. The process works just as well with silver nanowires, which bond with each other or with gold. .... The keys to a successful weld are the nanowire's single crystalline structure and matching orientation."

Hagelstein Chaudhary Excitation transfer and energy exchange processes for modeling the Fleischmann-Pons excess heat effect. ICCF-14

Kim, Theory of Low-Energy Deuterium Fusion in Micro/Nano-Scale Metal Grains and Particles. ICCF-14 

Takahashi Dynamic Mechanism of TSC Condensation Motion. ICCF-14 

Moagar-Poladian, Possible Mechanism For Cold Fusion. ICCF-15

Kitamura, Anomalous effects in charging of Pd powders with high density hydrogen isotopes. 
Phys. Lett. A, 2009. 

Lipson, A.G. Phenomenon of an Energetic Charged Particle Emission From Hydrogen/Deuterium Loaded Metals. ICCF-14

Karabut, Kolomeychenko. Experiments Characterizing the X-ray Emission from a Solid-state Cathode ICCF-14

Karabut, Experimental Research ICCF-14

Stringham  When Bubble Cavitation Becomes Sonofusion 237rd ACS 2009

Johnson, Melich. Weight of Evidence for the Fleischmann-Pons Effect. ICCF-14 

Watchdog Institute - "Of the more than $2 billion the federal government has given out to boost the economy and create green-energy jobs, more than three-quarters has gone to foreign-owned companies that dominate the global wind-power industry... La Jolla is the headquarters for Eurus Energy America, the subsidiary of a Japanese firm that received $91 million in federal stimulus money for a wind farm in western Texas. ... EnXco, a French-owned firm with American headquarters in Escondido, has received $69.5 million in stimulus money for its wind farm in Indiana. ... In a letter, Schumer asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu to reject requests for stimulus grants from companies that buy key components abroad. “In all due respect, I remind the secretary there is a four-letter word associated with the stimulus — J-O-B-S,” Schumer told ABC News. “Very few jobs here, lots of jobs in China. That is not what I intended or any other legislator who voted for the stimulus intended.” Chu responded on Facebook: “But manufacturers will not build plants here and grow their production capacity here unless there is domestic demand; and, until recently, that was not the case.”

Space War  - "Dr. Chunlei Guo and his team of Air Force Research Laboratory-funded researchers from the University of Rochester ... discovered a way to transform a shiny piece of metal into one that is pitch black, not by paint, but by using incredibly intense bursts of laser light. ... The key to creating this super-filament is an ultrabrief, ultraintense beam of light called a femtosecond laser pulse. The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second. That intense blast forces the surface of the metal to form nanostructures and microstructures that dramatically alter how efficiently light can radiate from the filament.  In addition to increasing the brightness of a bulb, Dr. Guo's process can be used to tune the color of the light as well. His team used a similar process to change the color of nearly any metal to blue, gold, or gray, in addition to the black already noted. They controlled the size and shape of the nanostructures--and, thus, what colors of light those structures absorb and radiate--to change the amount of each wavelength of light the filament radiates. The unique nanostructures, which are created from the laser, affect the way liquid molecules interact with metal molecules." 
 

Chemistry World December 2009 | Simon Hadlington
"Andrey Chuvilin from the University of Ulm in Germany and colleagues trapped single atoms of the heavy metal dysprosium within hollow fullerene spheres made up of 82 carbon atoms, and enclosed a series of these dysprosium-seeded cages within single-walled carbon nanotubes, with the fullerenes stringing themselves along the nanotube like peas in a pod. Using a technique called aberration-corrected TEM (transmission electron microscopy), the team was able directly to observe the dysprosium atoms interacting with the carbon atoms of the fullerene and nanotube."
 

In particular, OMB's opposition to letting DoE help U.S. nuclear vendors develop and license small, modular light-water reactors runs directly counter to broad bipartisan backing for such reactors as a promising area for rebirth of the U.S. nuclear industry and near-term deployment of emissions-free nuclear generation."

"A radical powered exoskeleton under development for use by the US military is to be fitted with fuel-cell power supplies which will increase its endurance from hours to days - and furnish juice for the burgeoning load of electronics carried by modern soldiers, too.
... The HULC powered suit runs on li-ion batteries at present. ... But Lockheed believe that a fuel cell powered version could go for days on one fill of juice. Even better, it would offer power sockets for all the wearer's other electronics, meaning that spare - or even, perhaps, primary - batteries could be left behind."

ScienceDaily (July 31, 2009) — A team of physicists from the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham have shown that electrons in narrow wires can divide into two new particles called spinons and a holons. In 1981, physicist Duncan Haldane conjectured theoretically that under these circumstances and at the lowest temperatures the electrons would always modify the way they behaved so that their magnetism and their charge would separate into two new types of particle called spinons and holons. The challenge was to confine electrons tightly in a 'quantum wire' and bring this wire close enough to an ordinary metal so that the electrons in that metal could 'jump' by quantum tunneling into the wire. ...'Quantum wires are widely used to connect up quantum "dots", which may in the future form the basis of a new type of computer, called a quantum computer. "

Justin Hyde FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF • July 31, 2009
WASHINGTON -- "The U.S. House approved an emergency $2-billion infusion for the cash-for-clunkers program this afternoon, with a plethora of lawmakers from around the country calling it a runaway success that should not be ended.....House Democratic leaders worked through the night to craft a bill carving $2 billion from an energy loan program that was part of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed earlier this year."

Mosier-Boss, P.A., et al., Reply to Comment on 'The Use of CR-39 in Pd/D Co-deposition Experiments': A Response to Kowalski. Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., 2008. 44: p. 287-290.

Sheets of self-folding material that can form three-dimensional shapes on command, part of DARPA's programmable-matter research.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – "Far below the Black Hills of South Dakota, crews are building the world's deepest underground science lab at a depth equivalent to more than six Empire State buildings — a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.
...The site is ideal for experiments because its location is largely shielded from cosmic rays that could interfere with efforts to prove the existence of dark matter, which is thought to make up nearly a quarter of the mass of the universe..... 
The first dark matter experiment will be the Large Underground Xenon detector experiment — or LUX — a project to detect weakly interacting particles that could give scientists greater insight into the Big Bang explosion believed to have formed the universe.
.... The research team will try to catch the ghostly particles in a 300-kilogram tank of liquid xenon, a cold substance that is three times heavier than water. If they tried to detect dark matter above ground, the highly sensitive detector would be bombarded by cosmic radiation."

 June 01, 2009 -   "Dignitaries and top scientists gathered near San Francisco Friday for the formal opening of a massive new facility that they hope will accomplish what was once thought impossible — nuclear fusion, the Holy Grail of energy sources.  The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will focus 192 laser beams on a hydrogen pellet the size of a bead, heating it to incredible temperatures in an attempt to recreate the power of the sun."

"At his home near Salisbury, UK, 82-year-old Fleischmann ....   regrets not having resolved his past dealings with the mainstream science community, who he thinks behaved in a "very unscientific" manner. ... Many scientists berated the two chemists for publicly announcing their results before having them published in a peer-reviewed journal. Fleischmann has always insisted they had no choice, because they had to apply for a research grant, which revealed a similar line of research being performed at Brigham Young University, also in Utah. When officials at the University of Utah heard of the competition, Fleischmann says he and Pons were railroaded into applying for a patent and delivering a press conference. "It was a very unfortunate time to try to float the idea," he explains.
....  this year, on the 20th anniversary of Pons and Fleischmann's press conference, a group at US military company SPAWAR in San Diego, California, announced persuasive evidence for high-energy neutrons ejected during the fusion of a deuterium and tritium atom in an electrode, using the same detectors developed for hot fusion (New Scientist, 28 March, p 10). Then in April, Robert Duncan, an expert in instrumentation and measurement at the University of Missouri in Columbia, appeared on US news programme 60 Minutes, having spent months visiting cold-fusion labs and crunching data for himself. Duncan, who had previously felt cold fusion was "junk science", concluded that the excess heat is "quite real"."

" A US weapons lab on Friday pulled back the curtain on a super laser with the power to burn as hot as a star. The National Ignition Facility's main purpose is to serve as a tool for gauging the reliability and safety of the US nuclear weapons arsenal but scientists say it could deliver breakthroughs in safe fusion power. ... Construction of the NIF began in 1997, funded by the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). "NIF, a cornerstone of the National Nuclear Security Administration's effort to maintain our nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing, will play a vital role in reshaping national security in the 21st century," said NNSA administrator Tom D'Agostino."

"The Nation needs transformational energy-related technologies to overcome the threats posed by climate change and energy security, arising from its reliance on traditional uses of fossil fuels and the dominant use of oil in transportation.”

Third International Conference On Future Energy October 9-10, 2009 

"Twenty years ago it appeared, for a moment, that all our energy problems could be solved. It was the announcement of cold fusion - nuclear energy like that which powers the sun - but at room temperature on a table top. It promised to be cheap, limitless and clean. Cold fusion would end our dependence on the Middle East and stop those greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. It would change everything. But then, just as quickly as it was announced, it was discredited. So thoroughly, that cold fusion became a catch phrase for junk science. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to oblivion - for many scientists today, cold fusion is hot again.. .... With so many open questions, 60 Minutes wanted to find out whether cold fusion is more than a tempest in a teapot. So 60 Minutes asked the American Physical Society, the top physics organization in America, to recommend an independent scientist. They gave us Rob Duncan, vice chancellor of research at the University of Missouri and an expert in measuring energy. ... We asked Duncan to go with 60 Minutes to Israel, where a lab called Energetics Technologies has reported some of the biggest energy gains yet. Duncan spent two days examining cold fusion experiments and investigating whether the measurements were accurate.... He crunched the numbers himself and searched for an explanation other than a nuclear effect. "I found that the work done was carefully done, and that the excess heat, as I see it now, is quite real," Duncan said."

"Researchers at a U.S. Navy laboratory have unveiled what they call "significant" evidence of a potential energy source that supposedly doesn't exist: cold fusion. Cold fusion, the supposed generation of thermonuclear energy using tabletop apparatus, was first reported in 1989 by electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. .... Indeed, the world — particularly the science community at large — soon reacted with skepticism and, ultimately, derision. ... Nonetheless, research into the supposedly debunked field continued within a relatively small network of dedicated cold-fusionists. Continued research now allegedly shows signs of paying off, as scientists last month described what they called the first clear visual evidence that LENR devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions."

FOX News, March 25, 2009 - "The 'cold fusion' device produced this pattern of 'triple tracks' that may be caused by high-energy neutrons resulting from a nuclear reaction. Twenty years ago this week, a pair of previously unknown scientists stunned the world by announcing they'd done the impossible by achieving nuclear fusion in a lab flask at room temperature. ...Now a U.S. Navy researcher, speaking on the anniversary of and in the same city where they made their announcement, thinks Fleischmann and Pons may have been right."
 

    07 April 2009 - Richard Webb New Scientist
 "...we could be about to witness the next stage in the laser's evolution, a sea change in how laser light is produced. A new wave of devices looks likely to exploit particle-like packets of energy to produce their light - packets that are neither light, nor matter, but both....The polariton, or exciton polariton, to give it its full name. ... First bred in 1991 by researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, they spend the entirety of their short lives in tiny mirrored cages known as semiconductor microcavities. ... And very odd characters they turn out to be. Take their mass, for example. Electrons are hardly the most heavyweight of particles, but compared with massless photons they are distinctly beefy. As a polariton contains a whole electron, you might expect its mass to be pretty close to the electron's. Not so. In fact, it seems to be only about one ten-thousandth the mass of the electron. In 2006, however, a team of British, French and Swiss researchers announced something that mimicked the behaviour of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a semiconductor cavity containing polaritons cooled to a slightly less frigid 19 kelvin (Nature, vol 443, p 409). ... Deveaud-Plédran suspects that polariton condensates could offer some other useful advantages. With polaritons, you could produce entangled states in a solid material such as a semiconductor, manipulate the states - do computing - and then break them up and have the results of the calculation encoded in the light, he suggests."

"The Michelson Doppler Imager on SOHO captured this white light continuum image of the spotless sun on March 31, 2009.  There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73 percent). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. "

2 Apr 09 –  “The sun has gone very quiet as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24. Since the current transition now exceeds 568 spotless days, it is becoming clear that sun has undergone a state change. It is now evident that the Grand Maxima state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end. (The sun) might (1) revert to the old solar cycles or (2) the sun might go even quieter into a “Dalton Minimum” or a Grand Minima such as the “Maunder Minimum”. It is still a little early to predict which way it will swing. Each of these two possibilities holds a great threat to our nation." 
 

e! Science News March 25, 2009 - "Researchers are reporting compelling new scientific evidence for the existence of low-energy nuclear reactions.. once called “cold fusion” ... “Our finding is very significant,” says study co-author and analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss, Ph.D., of the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) ...." 

25 March 2009—On Monday, scientists at the American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting in Salt Lake City announced a series of experimental results that they argue confirms controversial “cold fusion” claims. Chief among the findings was new evidence presented by U.S. Navy researchers of high-energy neutrons in a now-standard cold fusion experimental setup—electrodes connected to a power source, immersed in a solution containing both palladium and “heavy water.”
. The newest experiment, conducted by researchers at the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, in San Diego, required running current through the apparatus for two to three weeks. Beneath the palladium- and deuterium-coated cathode was a piece of plastic—CR-39, the stuff that eyeglasses are typically made from. Physicists use CR-39 as a simple nuclear particle detector.."

(Washington, DC) - 180 attendees of ICCF-14 gathered week-long to discuss, develop, and understand their research.  Despite meandering blockades, plasterboard, and a slow elevator, the spirit of the researchers forged ahead.  From Llewlellyn King, who identified the forces against clean abundant nuclear energy to the final day on non-helium-4 transmutation, led by Prof. George Miley, the program of nearly a hundred lectures, keynotes, posters, and discussions producing a highly informed, and scientifically robust group.

2007 Cold Fusion Colloquium at MIT

(High Energy Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions)

"Real Cold Fusion" (JL Naudin)

 The War Against Cold Fusion

"Energy: What is small enough to be hauled on a truck, has the power to provide electricity to 45,000 homes, can help the U.S. cut its dependence on foreign oil and has no emissions? ....Next week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will rule on an application from NuScale Power, an Oregon-based startup that is seeking federal clearance to move ahead with its project to build mini or portable nuclear reactors....Mini nuclear power plants, from end to end, would be no more than 65 feet long ......The U.S. has not seen a nuclear plant of any size come online since the Watts Bar facility in Tennessee went into production in 1996. While France gets more than 75% of its electricity from nuclear power, the U.S. has been stuck at the 20% level for years."

TOKYO, Jul 14, 2008 - Nisshinbo Industries Inc. (TSE:3105) has worked with the Tokyo Institute of Technology to develop the technology to use carbon instead of expensive platinum as the electrode catalyst for fuel cells.
The company hopes to have a practical version of the new catalyst ready in fiscal 2009, and will start by commercializing a product for the electrodes of residential fuel cells. .... Platinum is now used as the catalyst, but high demand and unstable supplies from main producer South Africa have driven prices sky-high. A 1kw-class residential fuel cell uses several grams of platinum and a 150kw-class automotive fuel cell uses around 60 grams, which at current prices adds 400,000 yen (US$3,762) to the cost of a car..... The new catalyst is made from nanospheres of carbon. For practical purposes as a fuel cell catalyst, 10 times more carbon is required than platinum; but even in this larger volume, the cost is just a 10th that of using platinum.

'The chemical properties of the super atoms that have been identified up until now are very similar to those of elements in the periodic table, because their outer layers are much the same. However, we may yet discover super atoms with a different outer layer, giving us another set of completely new properties.'

The University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library will be the repository for New Energy Foundation's Cold Fusion Oral History Collection upon its completion. 

“This arrangement brings to fruition the hopes that the New Energy Foundation and I had at the beginning of the project, to have the benefit of the University of Utah’s expertise and capabilities,” stated Project Director Marianne Macy. 

New Energy Foundation General Manager Christy Frazier noted, "We believe it is of important historic value that the University of Utah will become the repository for this Collection, and we are also excited about the fact that it will be completed around the 20th anniversary date. Most in this field have been working diligently, with great results, for these 20 years, and it is extremely important that their life's work and contribution to science be recorded for posterity."

The non-profit New Energy Foundation was founded by the late Dr. Eugene Mallove, who, until his murder in May 2004, was a leading proponent for new energy/new science. For more information about the New Energy Foundation Cold Fusion Oral History Collection, please contact the New Energy Foundation at (603) 485-4700, or staff@infinite-energy.com.

India - Occurrence of nuclear reactions at room temperatures has been confirmed. ... The phenomenon, once known as cold fusion, but now more accurately regarded as low energy nuclear reactions, represents a significant paradigm shift in our understanding of nuclear phenomena. It is unfortunate that CF got embroiled in a worldwide controversy. And that is because according to our current understanding of nuclear physics the kind of low energy nuclear reactions apparently occurring in cold fusion devices cannot and should not happen.Are we to believe the new experimental findings and change our theories or are we going to cling to our age old concepts and refuse to face facts? This is the dilemma facing nuclear physicists the world over. Immense resistance to accepting a paradigm shift is common to science. History is replete with such instances. The experiments show that when deuterium (or at times even hydrogen) atoms are inserted (or loaded) inside a metal such as palladium, titanium, nickel etc, occupying interstitial lattice positions in sufficiently large numbers (we call it “high loading ratios”) and if the right ‘Nuclear Active Environment’ is created, a variety of nuclear reactions are found to occur involving not only the deuterium nuclei but also the host metal atoms. In this process ‘excess energy’ is often found to be produced and in some cases nuclear particles such as neutrons, X-rays or even charged particles are released.  But increasingly it has been observed that new ‘transmutation’ elements not present prior to the commencement of the experiments have been detected. The occurrence of such nuclear reactions at ‘room’ temperatures has been confirmed in diverse experimental conditions and configurations such as electrolysis experiments, glow discharge devices and even simple gas loading configurations.

LENR have been studied by hundreds of scientists globally since the field began in 1989. At this time, the experimental evidence for the existence of LENR is strong. Further, many of the characteristics of LENR are already known. Measurement techniques and results obtained with them have been published in over 1,000 scientific papers. The mechanisms for such reactions are not yet understood theoretically. Nevertheless, the empirical information shows that LENR produce energy with harmless helium as the primary by-product. In most experiments, there is neither significant immediate radiation nor residual radioactivity. Several start-up companies and other organizations are working on the science of LENR. The emerging results might provide the basis for green energy sources with many applications, such as desalination. 

Information and papers on Lattice Assisted Nuclear reactions (aka LENR) can be found at: 
           http://world.std.com/~mica/cftsci.html
 http://www.infinite-energy.com http://www.lenr-canr.org
 

"It has been over a decade since Dr. Scott Chubb (a technical editor of Infinite Energy) first arranged to include a cold fusion session at the APS March Meeting. ...r. Melvin Miles opened the 2008 session with a report on replication of heat results obtained initially by Energetics in Israel. This work by Dr. Michael McKubre, Dr. Francis Tanzella, and Dr. Vittorio Violante was based on independent experiments performed at SRI and ENEA. Initial studies at ENEA and the University of Rome guided experiments evaluating a novel cathode current stimulus developed by Energetics in Israel. McKubre, Miles, Violante, and Tanzella are world class scientists. This paper, “The Significance of Replication,” is landmark science.
...Professor George Miley (University of Illinois) presented a review of “Evidence and Theory for Cluster Reactions in LENRs” (by Miley, Hora, Lipson, and Shrestha). ... Lawrence Forsley (spoke) on “Comparison of SPAWAR Co-Deposition Experimental Data and Competing Condensed Matter Nuclear Science Theories.” Co-author Dr. Pamela Mosier-Boss was not present. The paper is based on the SPAWAR co-deposition technique developed by Drs. Stan Szpak and Mosier-Boss and competing theories postulated to explain condensed matter nuclear science. Forsley’s presentation was eloquent and although conflict resolution is connoted, specific solutions are not suggested. This is understandable, as recent experimental research involves CR-39 detection requiring experienced care and judgment skills. Co-deposition has been successfully replicated by others experimentally. The ground is moving under this technology. 
Forsley also presented a talk on “Multiple Etching of CR-39 Nuclear Track Detectors Used in SPAWAR Co-Dep Experiment.” This paper too was prepared in conjunction with Mosier-Boss. CR-39 tracking of radiation, while inexpensive, requires extensive experience and judgment. This is investigative research. Forsley spoke to methods, computer assistance, and other interpretive techniques. CR-39 research interpretation progress significantly has spread to other experimental laboratories. 
John Dash presented on “Effects of Applied Magnetic Fields on Aqueous Electrolysis” (Dash et al.). This report builds on USN Technical Report 1862 by Dr. Frank Gordon and edited by Drs. S. Szpak and P.A. Mosier-Boss. John Dash gave an impressive oral and video presentation. In the video presentation an electrolysis cell was placed between the magnetic poles of an electromagnet so the magnetic field was normal to the electric field of electrolysis. A spiral turbulence was obvious and was demonstrated to increase both with increases in magnetic field and electrolysis. This method of investigative research can provide vital visual evidence of surface topography and reaction effects. 

JET has pioneered contributions in the development of the evolving landscape of cold fusion and its utilization, by developing a continuum electrophysics model which has led to the quasi-1-dimensional model of isotope loading of a metal, and then to codeposition, the optimal operating point, Phusor technology, control of "heat after death", among other directions. 

PHOTOGRAPH OF PHUSOR CATHODE SHOWS ASYMMETRIC ELECTROLYSIS OF A DIFFERENT TYPE OF COLD FUSION SYSTEM 
(c) Dr. M. Swartz, JET Energy, Inc., JET Thermal Products
Asymmetric Electrolysis (above) 

Excerpts from Issue 75; Sept/Oct 2007; Infinite Energy Magazine - More in that issue 

The 2007 Colloquium on Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions in Deuterated Metals was held on August 18, 2007 in Room 34-101 at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ..... Dr. Scott Chubb gave a brief overview of the events at the recent (June 2007) ICCF13 conference, held in Russia. ... Prof. Peter Hagelstein presented a “Review of Experimental Findings Involving Deuterated Metals.” "Dr. Larry Forsley presented on “Gamma Emissions from CR39 Films Near Codeposited Deuterated Palladium. Dr. Ludwik Kowalski and Rick Cantwell also presented on the topic. Dr. Forsley’s and Dr. Kowalski’s presentations related to work they presented during the March 2007 meeting of the American Physical Society—replicating effects that have been observed by Stan Szpak, Pamela Mosier-Boss, and Frank Gordon. ” 

Excerpts above, full story here     and here

2007 Cold Fusion Colloquium 
on "Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions (LANR)
Cold-Fusion Graybeards Keep the Research Coming
Mark Anderson

"CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- At an MIT lecture hall on Saturday, a convocation of 50 researchers and investors gathered to discuss a phenomenon that allegedly does not exist.  ...Presenters at the MIT event estimated that 3,000 published studies from scientists around the world have contributed to the growing canon of evidence suggesting that small but promising amounts of energy can be generated using the infamous tabletop apparatus.  ... Excess energy comes in bursts in these experiments," said Hagelstein. "The effect has been observed in many other laboratories. It's also not been observed in other laboratories, especially in the early days. .... 
Hagelstein's co-host, physician and electrical engineer Mitchell Swartz, reported his continued refinement of his own cold-fusion experiments, which he publicly displayed in operation over seven days at MIT in 2003. We have been running these (experiments) for so long," Swartz told the audience, "that the question now is not just can we (generate) excess heat, it's can we get a kilowatt? Can we get a small car moving on this stuff?" 
 Robert Weber, managing director of .. Strategy Kinetics, has worked with startup technologies and says cold fusion is in a bind in the United States today. Researchers need at least $50 to $100 million in seed money ... " 

Excerpts above, full story here: 

"For the first time in his company's 19 years of persistent trial and error, Mills says he has a market-ready product: a fuel cell that produces a chemical reaction to alter hydrogen atoms. The fuel cell releases heat that turns water into steam, which drives electric turbines. The working models in his lab generate 50 kilowatts of electricity - enough to power six or seven houses. But these, Mills says, can be scaled to drive a large, electric power plant. The inventor claims this electricity will cost less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, which compares to a national average of 8.9 cents." 

   Discussion forum

"I've been attending conferences on Cold Fusion (also called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions and Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions) since the 10th International Conference (ICCF10) held in Cambridge, MA in 2003. 
.... 
From last weekend's presentations and conversations with several participants, I believe that the LANR community has now identified the principal conditions and operating parameters under which cold fusion reactions take place. These conditions were either largely unknown to Pons and Fleischman or they failed to communicate sufficient details in 1989 to enable easier replication by others. LANR has been replicated now in many labs in many countries. 
.... 
If harnessed, Cold Fusion can be productized in any number of directions. Product ideas include home water heaters, electric power generation, desalinization, and transportation. The work done to date has largely been on the basic underlying science. What's needed next are concerted efforts to do the practical engineering work that leads to products. Such a multidisciplinary effort would include engineers with backgrounds in solid state physics, metallurgy, calorimetry and instrumentation, fabrication and manufacturing, failure analysis, and quality control, among other disciplines." 

Excerpts above, full story at Strategy Kinetics

Cold Fusion -- The Sun in a bottle
Alternative Science   - Richard Milton 
No other scientific endeavour has consumed so much talent, so much cash and so many years of sustained effort as the race to harness the power that makes the Sun shine. Billions of pounds, (and dollars, roubles and yen), more than four decades of research and the careers of thousands of physicists have been expended on the search for a nuclear reactor that will generate limitless power from the fusion of hydrogen atoms. There are grey-haired professors with lined faces still poring intently over the equations they first looked at eagerly with bright young eyes in the 1940s and 1950s. They will go into retirement with their dreams of cheap, safe power from fusion still years in the future. For the obstacles in their paths are as formidable now as ever. 

Fusion is the process taking place in the Sun's core where, at temperatures of millions of degrees, hydrogen atoms are compressed together by elemental forces to form helium and a massive outpouring of energy in the thermonuclear reaction of the hydrogen bomb.  It is not difficult, then, to imagine how people who have invested their talent and their lives in the quest to tame such forces are likely to react when told that fusion is possible at room temperature, and in a jam jar. 

The scientific world was astounded when, in March 1989, Professor Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University and his former student, Professor Stanley Pons of the University of Utah, held a press conference at which they jointly announced the discovery of 'cold fusion' -- the production of usable amounts of energy by what seemed to be a nuclear process occurring in a jar of water at room temperature.

Fleischmann and Pons told an incredulous press conference that they had passed an electric current through a pair of electrodes made of precious metals -- one platinum, the other palladium -- immersed in a glass jar of heavy water in which was dissolved some lithium salts. This very simple set-up was claimed to produce heat energy between four and ten times greater than the electrical energy they were putting in. No purely chemical reaction could produce a result of such magnitude so, said the scientists, it must be nuclear fusion.

 
The return of nuclear fusion?
Prospect Magazine  June 23, 2006 Fred Pearce

"Fusion research got going in the 1950s. The first fusion gypsies are approaching retirement. But scientific progress has been slow and funding sporadic. They have yet to see a watt of power delivered to any grid anywhere. But earlier this year, after more than a decade in the doldrums, the gypsies had their biggest boost, when governments representing most of the world's population decided to invest $10bn in trying to make the dream come true.   This summer, the fusion gypsies are reassembling in the wooded hills of Provence in southern France, where a new machine is to be built.  .... 

The moment seems right. As oil prices soar, as concern grows about global warming, and as politicians balance the potential of conventional nuclear power and renewables, there is a growing need for a new source of electricity that combines the capacity of a nuclear power plant with the cleanness and safety of a wind farm. Fusion could, eventually, be the answer. Even fusion's most ardent supporters admit it will be several decades before the technology becomes commercial. But if the physics comes to fruition, it could be very big—just as the oil runs out and climate change accelerates. 

In May, the governments of the EU, the US, China, India, Japan, Russia and Korea initialled a treaty to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the world's largest fusion machine, in a forest at Cadarache in Provence. They will sign formally in November. Half of the money will come from the EU. ITER will take a decade to build and will then run for two further decades, performing tens of thousands of fusion experiments. At the end of that time, say its backers, the world will know once and for all if nuclear fusion has a viable future. Technically viable, that is. The economics will come later."

COLD FUSION UPDATES FROM INFINITE ENERGY MAGAZINE
 

Infinite Energy Articles (pdf)

An Afternoon to Remember: Cold Fusion Session of APS Meeting (March 16, 2006) - Robert W. Bass

Exposing the "Real Embarrassments" of Cold Fusion - Scott Chubb 

Travel Report for the 12th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ICCF12)

The 2005 MIT Cold Fusion Colloquium, Honoring Eugene Mallove - Scott Chubb 

Charge Clusters: The work of Ken Shoulders - William Zebuhr 
 

AMERICAN PAPERS and WEB INFO ON COLD FUSION

[A partial introduction] 

Introduction to Cold Fusion
Further Introduction including Engineering and the Optimal Operating Point
Cold Fusion Science - Introduction to Material science 
Public Open-House Cold Fusion Demonstration at MIT and ICCF10
Theoretical physics paper on cold fusion - MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics  2003 (pdf) 
Production of helium in cold fusion - SRI 2000 (pdf) 
U.S. Navy Technical Report  2002 - A Decade of [Cold Fusion] Research at US Navy Laboratories (pdf) 
Cold Fusion Physics and Philosophy - Journal of Accountability in Research, 2000 (pdf)

THE REAL DEAL:  Cold Fusion: A Heated History 

September 30, 2005; repeated February 24, 2006
Bruce Gellerman continues his investigation into the future of fusion with a look at the latest research in the field of cold fusion, the science of creating a nuclear reaction at room temperature. Most scientists call sustained cold fusion reactions impossible, but others say their experiments are producing energy. 
Transcript     "(Cold fusion) offers a chance to have the United States make the Kyoto agreement moot, and make greenhouse warming moot." 

MP3 [download and listen to the radio show on the MIT 2005 CF Colloquium and Cold Fusion 
Bruce Gellerman:  "But reports of the death of cold fusion were premature. The field was kept alive by a small community of researchers who meet every 18 months or so. Critics call them a cult, but these true believers are sustained by laboratory results they say prove cold fusion can produce unlimited, safe, non-polluting energy.  ..... History can offer solace, of sorts, for cold fusion advocates. In 1905, Albert Einstein came up with his revolutionary theory e=mc2, it laid the basis for nuclear energy. But it wasn't until 27 years later, in 1932, that scientists in the lab finally confirmed his theory. By that measure, cold fusion still has time before it's fully recognized, or finally rejected, by the ultimate arbiter in these matters: the scientific method."

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. " 

[The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America]

 

President Ronald Reagan: 
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. 
It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

Purdue's review panel completes review of Taleyarkhan

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ­ A Purdue University examination committee reviewing issues 
concerning research on the use of sound waves to create nuclear fusion reactions has completed its work. 
"The committee has submitted a report, and I will take appropriate action after studying the recommendations," said Charles O. Rutledge, vice president for research, who appointed the committee in March. 
Rutledge appointed the examination committee after the British research journal Nature reported on its Web site that some researchers had raised questions about the research of Rusi Taleyarkhan, a Purdue professor of nuclear engineering. 
{Ed. These were competitors and a graduate student} 
Since joining the Purdue faculty in 2004 and previously at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Taleyarkhan has published research findings in several refereed journals showing evidence that "sonofusion" generates nuclear reactions by creating tiny bubbles that implode with tremendous force. Experimental nuclear fusion reactors have historically required large, multibillion-dollar machines, but sonofusion devices might be built for a fraction of the cost and theoretically could be an unlimited source of clean energy. 
Taleyarkhan first reported observing the bubble fusion effect in March 2002 in the journal Science. In addition to its potential as a new source of clean energy, Taleyarkhan and other researchers believe sonofusion could be used in a wide range of applications from homeland security to the study of neutron stars and black holes.

  "Observation Of Surface Distribution Of Products By X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry During D2 Gas Permeation Through Pd Complexes", 
Iwamura, Y., et alia, The 12th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2005. Yokohama, Japan. 

Technical Manuscripts and Updates Cold Fusion

Yoshiaki Arata (Osaka University) -  “Double-Structure” cold fusion cell 
Japan Academy of Science B73, 62-7 (1997), B73, 1-6 (1997)  Updated pdf paper

George Miley et al.  - "Use of Combined NAA and SIMS Analyses for Impurity Level Isotope Detection"
Journal of Radiological and Nuclear Chemistry, 263 (3), 691-696 (2005)  Updated pdf paper

Xing Zhong Li   "A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science" Journal of Fusion Energy  23(3), 217-21 (2004)  Updated pdf paper

---

"The neglect of cold fusion is one of the biggest scandals in the history of science."

-Sir Arthur C. Clarke

An All-Electric Car That Accelerates Faster Than a Ferrari  - Technology Review 

SAN CARLOS, Calif. (AP) -- ... Silicon Valley thinks it can do what Detroit could not -- create a thriving business selling electric cars. In the 1990s, General Motors and other automakers spent billions to develop battery-powered vehicles, but they flopped because most couldn't travel more than 100 miles before having to recharge. ... At least three Silicon Valley startups -- Tesla Motors of San Carlos, Wrightspeed Inc. of Woodside and battery maker Li-on Cells of Menlo Park -- are among a small cadre of companies nationwide developing electric cars or components. 
.... Tesla and Wrightspeed are using lithium-ion batteries that are more powerful, lighter and efficient than the lead acid batteries used in early electric cars or the nickel metal hydride batteries used in today's hybrids. 
... In Tesla's workshop about 20 miles south of San Francisco, Eberhard and Tarpenning offered a glimpse of their first model -- a sleek two-seater called the Roadster that resembles a Lotus Elise -- but would not allow photographs. ... To build the Roadster, Tesla engineers designed a sophisticated battery system with more than 8,000 lithium-ion cells and a network of computers to control them, Eberhard said. They also built an electric motor that is more than twice as powerful as earlier electric vehicles. The Roadster will be able to drive about 250 miles on a single three-hour charge, drive up to 135 miles per hour and accelerate from zero to 60 in four seconds, Eberhard said. It will cost between $85,000 and $120,000. 

''The car business had more challenges than we expected,'' Tarpenning said.  Ian Wright, who left Tesla to start Wrightspeed last year, is aiming at the same $3 billion market for high-performance sports cars. The New Zealand-born electrical engineer spent nine months retooling an Ariel Atom race car to run on a lithium-ion battery -- a prototype of the car he hopes to eventually sell for about $120,000. 

... With no doors, roof or windshield, a drive in Wrightspeed's X1 feels like a roller coaster ride and can leave passengers wind-beaten and queasy. It accelerates from zero to 60 mph in 3 seconds, making it one of the world's fastest production cars. Last year, Wright's X1 beat a Porsche and Ferrari in separate races.

 

  Strong Growth in World Energy Demand is Projected Through 2030 - Cattle Network 

"Worldwide marketed energy consumption is projected to grow by 71 percent between 2003 and 2030 ... Petroleum consumption is still expected to grow strongly, however, reaching 118 million barrels per day in 2030. The United States, China, and India together account for 51 percent of the projected growth in world oil use.  Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are expected to increase their supply of oil by 14.6 million barrels per day between 2003 and 2030. Higher oil prices contribute to a substantial increase in projected non-OPEC supply, which rises by 23.7 million barrels per day, including 8.1million barrels per day of unconventional production, over the same period. World unconventional production (including oil sands, bitumen, biofuels, coal-to-liquids, and gas-to-liquids) increases by 9.7 million barrels per day between 2003 and 2030, representing 25 percent of the total world liquids supply increase. 
... Rising fossil fuel prices also allow renewable energy sources to compete more effectively in the electric power sector. Consumption of hydroelectricity and other grid-connected renewable energy sources expands by 2.4 percent per year. 

+ Higher fossil fuel prices and concerns about security of energy supplies are expected to improve prospects for nuclear power capacity over the projection period, and many countries are expected to build new nuclear power plants. World nuclear capacity is projected to rise from 361 gigawatts in 2003 to 438 gigawatts in 2030, with significant declines in capacity projected only for Europe, where several countries have either plans or mandates to phase out nuclear power, or where old reactors are expected to be retired and not replaced. 
.....  energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are projected to rise from 25.0 billion metric tons in 2003 to 33.7 billion metric tons in 2015 and 43.7 billion metric tons in 2030. Much of the projected increase in emissions is expected to occur in the non-OECD regions of the world, accompanying large increases fossil fuel use.." 
 

 
Super Battery Victor Limjoco 

As our portable devices get more high-tech, the batteries that power them can seem to lag behind. But Joel Schindall and his team at M.I.T. plan to make long charge times and expensive replacements a thing of the past--by improving on technology from the past. .. But capacitors contain energy as an electric field of charged particles created by two metal electrodes. Capacitors charge faster and last longer than normal batteries. The problem is that storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the battery's electrodes, so even today's most powerful capacitors hold 25 times less energy than similarly sized standard chemical batteries.
The researchers solved this by covering the electrodes with millions of tiny filaments called nanotubes. Each nanotube is 30,000 times thinner than a human hair. Similar to how a thick, fuzzy bath towel soaks up more water than a thin, flat bed sheet, the nanotube filaments on increase the surface area of the electrodes and allow the capacitor to store more energy. Schindall says this combines the strength of today's batteries with the longevity and speed of capacitors. 
 
 

Schindall thinks hybrid cars would be a particularly popular application for these batteries, especially because current hybrid batteries are expensive to replace.  Schindall also sees the ecological benefit to these reinvented capacitors. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 3 billion industrial and household batteries were sold in the United States in 1998. When these batteries are disposed, toxic chemicals like cadmium can seep into the ground

 
    COLD FUSION UPDATE 
                 FROM RHODES SCHOLAR DR. ROBERT BASS:

An Afternoon to Remember: Cold Fusion Session of APS Meeting (March 16, 2006) - Robert W. Bass 
courtesy of Infinite Energy

"Everyone aware of the potential epochal importance of condensed matter nuclear science (CMNS) should be grateful to Scott Chubb for the arduous but thankless annual task, for the past six years, of keeping the subject alive at meetings of the American Physical Society (APS). (This year’s session took place in Baltimore, Maryland on March 16, from 2:30 to 5:06 p.m.)  ..... the 13 presenters or groups of presenters this year included a gratifyingly high percentage of the most stalwart contributors to this emerging field of revolutionary science.

 Atomic Motor - 
Cold Fusion, Energy & Nanotech in a Networked World

Shining Light on Technology News & Media From One  Nuclear Engineer's Perspective 
 

 
  Raiders Of The Lost Dimension   Los Alamos NM - Spacemart 

A team of scientists working at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory's Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos has uncovered an intriguing phenomenon while studying magnetic waves in barium copper silicate, a 2,500-year-old pigment known as Han purple. The researchers discovered that when they exposed newly grown crystals of the pigment to very high magnetic fields at very low temperatures, it entered a rarely observed state of matter. At the threshold of that matter state--called the quantum critical point-the waves actually lose a dimension. That is, the magnetic waves go from a three-dimensional to a two-dimensional pattern. ... they discovered that at high magnetic fields (above 23 Tesla) and at temperatures between 1 and 3 degrees Kelvin (or roughly minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit), the magnetic waves in Han purple crystals "exist" in a unique state of matter called a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC).  In the BEC state, magnetic waves propagate simultaneously in all of three directions (up-down, forward-backward and left-right). At the quantum critical point, however, the waves stop propagating in the up-down dimension, causing the magnetic ripples to exist in only two dimensions, much the same way as ripples are confined to the surface of a pond. ..... 
Microscopic image of Han Purple by Marcelo Jaime of MST-NHMFL 

In the higher temperatures of the BEC state, the individual waves, which are associated with magnetism from pairs of copper atoms in the Han Purple pigment, lose their identities and condense into one giant wave of undulating magnetism. As the temperature is lowered, this magnetic wave becomes more sensitive to the vertical arrangement of individual copper layers in the pigment -which are shifted relative to each other- in a phenomenon called "geometrical frustration." 

"[W]hen the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of."     - Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University 

"This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."     - Western Union internal memo, 1878 

"Radio has no future."    - Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897. 

"Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." - Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London. 

It'll Never Work!

COLD FUSION TIMES - INFORMATION FOR SKEPTICS

  "... after a few more flashes in the pan, we shall hear very little more of Edison or his electric lamp. Every claim he makes has been tested and proved impracticable." 
          [New York Times, January 16, 1880] 

          "Professor Goddard ... does not know the relation of action to reaction ... he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in our high schools" 
          [New York Times, January 13, 1920] 

Physicists create great balls of fire
"Ball lightning – the mysterious slow-moving spheres of light occasionally seen during thunderstorms – has been created in the lab. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and the Humboldt University in Berlin have used underwater electrical discharges to generate luminous plasma clouds resembling ball lightning that last for nearly half a second and are up to 20 centimetres across. They hope that these artificial entities will help them understand the bizarre phenomenon and perhaps even provide insights into the hot plasmas needed for fusion power plants..... Most accounts describe a hovering, glowing, ball-like object up to 40 centimetres across, ranging in colour from red to yellow to blue and lasting for several seconds or in rare cases even minutes. ....“It is likely that lightning flashes and water interact to produce ball lightning,” says Fussmann. “We therefore use a short, high-voltage discharge of 5000 volts to vaporise some of the water in a glass tank and create the plasma ball.” The tank contains two electrodes, one of which is insulated from the surrounding water by a clay tube. The high voltage causes enormous currents of up to 60 amps – over 200 times those needed to cause death – to flow through the water for a fraction of a second. These enter the clay tube, causing the water there to evaporate and a luminous plasma ball - consisting of ionised water molecules - to rise from the surface. 
.... Despite the bright glow, the balls also appear to be rather cold, much like neon lights. A sheet of paper placed above them is lifted but does not catch fire. 

   A Sponge's Guide to Nano-Assembly   Technology Review -  Kevin Bullis 

One of the ongoing goals of nanotechnology is to easily and inexpensively create high-performance materials structured at the nanoscale. And one of the most promising strategies is to attempt to mimic nature's remarkable ability to self-assemble complex shapes with nanoscale precision. Now researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), using clues gleaned from marine sponges, have developed a method of synthesizing semiconducting materials with useful structures and novel electronic properties. The first applications could be ways to make materials for more powerful batteries and highly efficient solar cells at a lower price. .... Daniel Morse, professor of molecular genetics and biochemistry at UCSB, who led the project. The method works with a wide variety of materials. So far, he says, the group has made "30 different kinds of oxides, hydroxides, and phosphates."  Morse and his colleagues began their research by studying the methods used by marine sponges to make intricate glass skeletons called spicules (see illustration). One type of sponge produces a cylinder that looks as if it were made of woven glass fibers, although it isn't woven at all, but assembled molecule by molecule to make the structure.  In particular, the researchers studied a type of sponge that makes tiny needles of glass. They found that the genes responsible for the glass structures encode for enzymes that serve as both a physical template for the structure and a catalyst for assembling molecular precursors into the desired material. 

"At first the crystals form at the [surface], but with time they begin to project down into the solution like stalactites growing down from the roof of a cave," Morse says. "What you end up with is a nanostructured thin film of semiconductor with very high surface area because of all the projecting thin plates or needles that project down into the solution."  .... Although the current process works only for thin films, further understanding of the catalysis and templating methods of sponges could one day make it possible to fabricate complex machine parts by piecing together molecules. 

    (Hot) Fusion reactor work gets go-ahead

BBC - Seven international parties involved in an experimental nuclear fusion reactor project have initialled a 10bn-euro (£6.8bn) agreement on the plan. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) will be the most expensive joint scientific project after the International Space Station.  ... The seven-party consortium, which includes the European Union, the US, Japan, China, Russia and others, agreed last year to build Iter in Cadarache, in the southern French region of Provence. 
It will produce the first sustained fusion reactions 
[Ed: after cold fusion achieved it 17 years earlier] 

The EU is to foot about 50% of the cost to build the experimental reactor.  .... If all goes well with the experimental reactor, officials hope to set up a demonstration power plant at Cadarache by 2040. 
[Ed: 51 years after cold fusion was successfully achieved, then cover-ed up!] 

To use controlled fusion reactions on Earth as an energy source, it is necessary to heat a gas to temperatures exceeding 100 million Celsius - many times hotter than the centre of the Sun.  The technical requirements to do this, which scientists have spent decades developing, are immense; but the rewards, if Iter can be made to work successfully, are extremely attractive. One kilogram of fusion fuel would produce the same amount of energy as 10,000,000kg of fossil fuel.  Fusion does produce radioactive waste but not the volumes of long-term high-level radiotoxic materials that have so burdened nuclear fission. 
[Ed: Cold fusion has NO radioactive waste, but makes helium!] 

Officials project that 10-20% of the world's energy could come from fusion by the end of the century. 
However, environmental groups have criticised the project, saying there was no guarantee that the billions of euros would result in a commercially viable energy source. "Investment in energy efficiency and renewables is the only reliable way to guarantee energy security," said Silvia Hermann, from Friends of the Earth Europe. "Giving billions of euros to a single nuclear project that is so far from reality is ill judged and irresponsible." 
The European Commission said the investment costs were justified, explaining that the technology used in fusion reactor plants would be "inherently safe, with no possibility of meltdown, or runaway reactions."

INFINITE ENERGY MAGAZINE
 
 

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INTEGRITY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

     NEWS AND ARCHIVES
Future Energy Program
Newsletter

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American Antigravity

 

  COLD FUSION papers from India
BARC Studies In Cold Fusion, BARC Report 1500

ELECTROLYTIC EXPERIMENTS
 Cold Fusion Experiments Using a Commercial Pd-Ni Electrolyser - Krishnan,  Iyengar et alia 

 Preliminary Results of Cold Fusion Studies Using a Five Module High Current Electrolytic Cell - . Nayar,  et alia 

Observation of Cold Fusion in a Ti-SS Electrolytic Cell - Krishnan et alia 

 Tritium Generation during Electrolysis Experiment - Radhakrishnan,Sundaresan,  et alia 

 Tritium Analysis of Samples Obtained from Various Electrolysis Experiments at BARC -   Murthy, Iyengar, Joseph,  et alia 

GAS LOADING EXPERIMENTS
Autoradiography of Deuterated Ti and Pd Targets for Spatially Resolved Detection of Tritium Produced by Cold Fusion -Rout, Srinivasan  et alia 

Evidence for Production of Tritium via Cold Fusion Reactions in Deuterium Gas Loaded Palladium - Krishnan, et alia

 
 

"No one is going to help us.   We've got to do it ourselves.'

                         "United 93'' 

 

So why is the US Patent Office obstructing Cold Fusion and other Alternative Energy Patent Applications?

WHY IS THERE NO ONE IN THE US CONGRESS WHO CARES?
 
 

Energy secretary says coal, oil will power U.S. for decades

 Houston Chronicle  - Oil and coal will continue to power the U.S. economy for many years, even as more emphasis is put on developing alternative sources of energy, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said Saturday in Houston.  "Fossil fuels will continue to dominate ... for several decades at least," Bodman said during a commencement address to about 350 members of the South Texas College of Law 2006 graduating class at the George R. Brown Convention Center.  .... one of the most important sources of energy will be nuclear power, along with the means of safely operating the plants and disposing of nuclear waste, he said. 

(Secretary) Bodman has told Congress that part of the solution will come from increased research on hydrogen, solar and biological fuels, and fusion, a nuclear reaction that produces no radioactive waste.

["Perhaps someone should tell him that the only form of fusion that produces no radioactive waste is Cold Fusion." -  R. van Spaandonk] 
 
 
 

 

Carbon Fullerenes Now Have Metallic Cousins

Scientists have uncovered a class of gold atom clusters that are the first known metallic hollow equivalents of the famous hollow carbon fullerenes known as buckyballs..... 
The fullerene is made up of a sphere of 60 carbon (C) atoms; gold (Au) requires many fewer—16, 17 and 18 atoms, in triangular configurations more gem-like than soccer ball. At more than 6 angstroms across, or roughly a ten-millionth the size of a comma, they are nonetheless roomy enough to cage a smaller atom. 
Experiments at the PNNL-based W.R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory elicited the photoelectron spectra of clusters smaller than Au32, which had been theorized as the gold-cage analog to C60 but ruled out by Wang’s group in an experiment that showed it as being a compact clump. 
They instead turned their attention to clusters smaller than 20 atoms, which earlier work by Wang’s group showed were 3-D, but larger than 13 atoms, known to be flat. The spectra and calculations showed that clusters of 15 atoms or fewer remained flat but that all but one possible configuration of 16, 17 and 18 atoms open in the middle. At 19 atoms, the spaces fill in again to form a near-pyramid. 
“Au-16 is beautiful and can be viewed as the smallest golden cage,” Wang said. ....Wang and his co-workers suspect “that many different kinds of atoms can be trapped inside” these hollow clusters, a process called “doping.” “These doped cages may very well survive on surfaces,” suggesting a method for influencing physical and chemical properties at smaller-than-nano scales, “depending on the dopants.” 
Wang’s group has not yet attempted to imprison a foreign atom in the hollow Au cages, but they plan to try. 

Being invisible 'a possibility'  -   Reuters  May 26, 2006 

"NEW materials that can change the way light and other forms of radiation bend around an object may provide a way to make objects invisible, researchers said.  Two separate teams of researchers have come up with theories on ways to use experimental "metamaterials" to cloak an object and hide it from visible light, infrared light, microwaves and perhaps even sonar probes. 
"Imagine a situation where a medium guides light around a hole in it," physicist Ulf Leonhardt of Britain's University of St Andrews, wrote in one of the reports, published in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.
"The light rays end up behind the object as if they had travelled in a straight line. 
"Any object placed in the hole would be hidden from sight. The medium would create the ultimate optical illusion: invisibility," Mr Leonhardt wrote.  .... Metamaterials are composite structures that deliberately resemble nothing found in nature. They are engineered to have unusual properties, such as the ability to bend light in unique ways." 

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. "It looks like as if three men walking behind are seen .... during a demonstration of optical camouflage technology at the Tokyo University in Tokyo Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003. The demonstration conducted by Faculty of Engineering Prof. Susumu Tachi ... that will eventually enable camouflaged objects virtually transparent by wearing an optical device. This photo was taken through a viewfinder that provides with a combined image of moving images taken behind Obana and him wearing a luminous jacket that makes a transparent effect."

 
Invisibility cloak 'five years away'   - Telegraph UK

"Scientists have taken the first steps towards creating a Harry Potter-style cloak of invisibility. 
Professor John Pendry, from Imperial College London, said that it may not take long to develop an invisible fabric - assuming there is sufficient research into the technology. .... The obvious military applications have attracted support from the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which funded the early research.  Already the scientists are a long way towards the easier goal of creating a cloak that can render objects invisible to radar or radio waves. Both have longer wavelengths than visible light, making them less challenging to work with.  "We are confident we can build a cloak that will work for radar within 18 months," said Prof Pendry, one of the authors of a research paper published today in the journal Science. 
The key to the invisibility cloak is "metamaterial" - exotic composite material made using nanotechnology that can change the direction of electromagnetic radiation.  .... Metamaterials have already been demonstrated by Professor David Smith, from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, one of the US scientists who contributed to the Science paper."

Record-breaking laser is hot stuff -  Mark Peplow 

With the heat of a burning sun, a laser pulse has ripped through pure sapphire, heating it faster than any explosion ever recorded. The experiment was a blast, say physicists who reckon their laser can drive temperature increases of a billion billion (10**18) degrees per second, although they could only keep it going for a couple of hundred femtoseconds (with a femtosecond being 10**-15 s). That tops the previous heating-rate record, they say. The intense heating power of the laser made miniature fireballs, just thousandths of a millimetre in size, at pressures of 10 terapascals (10**13 Pa). That's about 20 times the pressure at the Earth's core. .... The intense crush also raised the temperature to about half a million °C. "You have the same parameters in an atomic explosion," says Vladimir Tikhonchuk, a theoretical physicist from the University of Bordeaux, France.  The success shows that scientists can now simulate the intense condition at the hearts of planets, or possibly even trigger fusion reactions, using a conventional tabletop laser. .... Each laser pulse lasted just 200 femtoseconds, enough time for light travelling in a vacuum to zip across the width of a human hair. The sapphire exploded under the heat in just a few femtoseconds, and as the ball of shredded atoms grew it became much less dense, making further heating much less efficient. .... 
Juodkazis S., et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. , 96, 166101 (2006). 
Haines M. G., et al. Phys. Rev. Lett., 96, 075003 (2006)

JT-60 Tokamak Reactor Doubles Plasma Confinement Record  Sven Olsen - May 10, 2006 

"The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) just announced that its JT-60 Fusion Tokamak reactor nearly doubled the world record of tokamak plasma from 16.5 seconds to 28.6 seconds.  Nuclear physicists propose that once tokamak reactors can achieve approximately 400 seconds of plasma, the reactor will achieve a stable, sustainable nuclear fusion reaction. 
The JT-60 tokamak is one of the largest tokamak reactors in operation today, and was the same reactor that set the previous fusion confinement time of 16.5 seconds.  The previous world record for plasma duration stood for two years." 
 
 

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Unlike hot fusion reactors, cold fusion reactors have run for days and weeks, cleanly, without neutrons, and without pollution or radioactive products.  Yet, because of the competition with oil and hot fusion, cold fusioneers have been attacked for 17 years by the some in the DoE, the US Patent Office, and some hot fusion physicists to a degree that is unknown in other competing energy and science fields.

U.S. energy research is declining  - Conference here shows other nations way ahead
 The Capital Times  - Mike Ivey 

"Given the decades-long warnings about a looming world energy crisis - punctuated by the recent spike in crude oil prices - you'd assume the U.S. has been ramping up its research and development spending on energy. 
Think again.  Since 1980, energy research has fallen from 10 percent to 2 percent of total R&D spending. 
....This comes as other nations, such as France and Finland, have made startling advances in nuclear energy and dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions - the pollution from burning oil, gasoline, coal or other fossil fuels and the major cause of global warming.
....Consider the U.S. is spending $67 billion annually on the war on terror vs. $3.4 billion on energy research, according to the National Science Foundation. Private sector pharmaceutical companies are investing 10 times as much in R&D as energy firms like Exxon Mobil or Chevron.
Need more numbers? 
The U.S spent $58 billion annually (inflation-adjusted) during Reagan's run-up on defense spending from 1981-89. It spent $23 billion in 1963-72 on Kennedy's Apollo project to put a man on the moon. 
"We could kick the fossil fuel habit in 10 years if we had the same kind of visionary leadership as JFK," says David Goodstein, author of "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil." 
.... Finland is even a step further ahead, Perves said, opening a pressurized nuclear reactor in 2005 that is the most efficient plant developed to date.  Meanwhile, the U.S. nuclear industry has been on hold, with no new plants opened since the early 1970s. Wisconsin remains under a moratorium on construction of any new nuclear plants, a law that dates to 1984. Corradini said Wisconsin could build a state-of-the-art nuclear power plant for about the same cost of the proposed new coal-burning facility in Oak Creek.  "It's a political question in this country," he said. "There is no leadership."  In addition to new sources of clean energy from the sun, wind or biofuels such as ethanol, conference attendees said there are great strides to be made in conservation or small-scale renewable energy projects like low-temperature solar heating."

 
Produce More Domestic Energy, Now! - American Spectator - Quin Hillyer

"With higher gasoline prices a continuing political concern, it's high time somebody placed the blame where it belongs -- and high time that somebody recognizes that while there are few short-term solutions that can immediately alleviate the cash crunch, it's worth realizing that today's long-term solutions will one day make a difference in some future year's short-term. ..... TODAY, LET'S FOCUS ON THE KEY problem of a lack of domestic production of oil and gas. National public policy in this regard has been horrendously negligent -- and the Alaskan refuge drilling ban is only a small part of the problem.

The bigger problem is the overall moratorium on all drilling off U.S. coasts except those in the central and western Gulf of Mexico. Vast supplies of oil and natural gas lie off of Alaska, California, Florida, Virginia, and (I'm told) probably New Jersey and the Carolinas as well. But they lie untapped, forbidden from use by the utterly counterproductive agitation by environmentalists and tourism boosters with overly heightened sensitivities but too little sense (and too little knowledge)."
 
 
 

High Gasoline Prices Here to Stay - Bodman(U.S. Energy Secretary) - Forbes 

WASHINGTON (AFX) - High gasoline prices are here to stay for at least the next couple of years and the government can do little in the short term to mitigate them, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at the weekend.  'Suppliers have lost control of the market,' Bodman told NBC television, in explaining how gasoline (petrol) prices had risen as much as 60 cents a gallon, or at least 25 pct, in one month.
'We've got demand coming from China, from India, from the United States,' reflecting strong economies, Bodman said.

 
Energy Sec: US 'Off Oil' in 4 Years - Newsmax.com 

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Sunday that the U.S. was just "three or four years" away from perfecting the process that would allow American motorists to fuel their vehicles with ethanol instead of gasoline.
... "We will be in a position over the next three or four years . . . where we will have designed the enzymes and we will be in a position that we can then start the conversion." 
.... Bodman estimated that by 2025, ethanol production would replace about 20 percent of total U.S. gasoline consumption.

    Transmission of EVOs Through Metal - Ken Shoulders 

High-density and highly organized clusters of electronic charge, or EVOs, are shown to transit through metal with relative ease compared to that of single electrons. Upon reaching an interface between metal and vacuum, the charges exit the metal somewhat disheveled as clusters and propagate through vacuum as both free electrons and clusters. 
An EVO injection velocity of a few hundred volts easily penetrates 1 millimeter of aluminum. Although contrary to established electron penetration theory, lower injection velocities produce greater EVO mobility and lifetime within the metal target. The configuration used provides a cold, intense electron emission source without concern for either work function or geometry of the cathode. 

[many papers at the site; excellent experiment work]

Ex-CIA chief: Oil key to U.S. security - Jason Cato 
TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Think gas prices are bad now?  Imagine another terrorist attack -- especially one on Saudi Arabian oil refineries, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said Monday during a visit to Pittsburgh. 
..... One way to beat that -- and hit Islamic extremists in the pocketbook -- is for Americans to start using renewable fuel, Woolsey said. That includes ethanol and biofuels as alternatives to gas and diesel. 

[Ed. Ending the conspiracy against cold fusion by the DOE and Dept of Commerce would also help] 

In addition to alternative fuels, Woolsey also advocates fuel-efficient vehicles and technological advances to build cars and trucks out of lighter carbon composites -- all in an effort to use less oil. 
.... Continued dependency on foreign oil could pose problems if future Middle Eastern regimes are not as cooperative  .... Short of sweeping technological and fuel changes, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., have become focused on more short-term answers to high gasoline prices. 
.... Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has called for more homegrown oil. 
"Consumers are feeling pain at the pump, and Republicans are moving aggressively to address their concerns," he said. "We must reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing domestic exploration, improving our energy infrastructure and continuing to encourage conservation."

Argonne's drive: new fuels for cars
Chicago Sun-Times - Tara Burghart 

It's like a giant rolling Erector Set -- for engineers who really like to play around with automotive components. 
Formally called the Mobile Automotive Technology Testbed, the bare-bones chassis plays a vital role in Argonne National Laboratory's research into new ways to power vehicles. One day, the engineers can test how an electric motor performs with a gasoline-powered engine and a manual transmission. The next day they can substitute an engine fueled by hydrogen. Soon, they intend to place giant batteries on the testbed's rear platform to research a plug-in hybrid vehicle that could increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. ... 
The building where the testbed is housed illustrates the nation's changing priorities. The structure previously was used for research into magnets necessary for use in nuclear reactors.  ...
Although Argonne has done work on fuel cells and similar futuristic technologies, Hillebrand says he is most excited about its potential to play a lead role among the national labs in developing plug-in hybrids. 
A standard hybrid such as the Toyota Prius uses an electric motor, a small battery and a gasoline motor. With a plug-in hybrid, the small battery is replaced by much bigger battery packs that can be recharged through a standard 120-volt outlet.   With such a car, a driver could travel the first 10, 20 or even 40 miles of a trip on battery power before the vehicle would switch to the gasoline engine, Hillebrand says.

Kramer (100 MPG cars) come to Washington
Evworld -| Bill Moore 

Felix Kramer is on a mission, one that carried him and his new plug-in Toyota Prius hybrid to the steps of Capitol Hill. There he and representatives of Electro Energy, which brought along their own plug-in Prius, showcased to some of Washington's most powerful politicians .... For the auto companies making the rounds in Washington, the message from GM and Ford was we're doing E85, which is a relatively cheap fix of less than $200 per car and according to Kramer, "lets them off of the hook for the next ten years." While he favors ethanol, it alone isn't enough to seriously address America's oil addiction when the nation consumes 140 billion gallons of gasoline annually, while producing just under 5 billion gallons of ethanol. 
"If you fuel the local miles with electricity, then you need only 40 billion gallons," he said. "That's really an achievable goal."  He went on to explain how his small, three-person team at California Cars Initiative worked with Electro Energy, a Danbury, Connecticut firm that has developed a technology to improve NiMH batteries for use in plug-in hybrids ... "And so, we wanted to show a lithium ion car, the Energy CS car that is my car, the car I drive every day, and this NiMH car from Connecticut. It was a great combination to have those two cars there."  Kramer explained that there is a slight difference in the low-speed, electric-only range of the two cars: Electro Energy's NiMH car will do about 20 miles, while the Energy CS -- equipped with Valence Saphion lithium ion batteries -- will do between 25-30 miles as long as the speed is below 35 mph, at which point Toyota's computer control system will switch on the gasoline engine.

 
Bubble-fusion group suffer setback - Team admits a mix-up with one of their neutron detectors
Nature - Eugenie Samuel Reich 

An erratum providing details of the mistake by Rusi Taleyarkhan of Purdue University and colleagues has been published in Physical Review Letters1. .... Taleyarkhan claimed to have deployed three independent methods of detecting these neutrons, one of which was a boron trifluoride gas proportional tube with a polyethylene covering. His erratum notes that this actually turned out to be a lithium iodide crystal scintillation detector, also with a polyethylene covering.  According to the erratum, the error was discovered "upon disassembly of the outer coverings" of the detector and is due to "an oversight which was based on incorrect information from a person's recollection who loaned this apparatus for the study". 

(Neutron expert Mike Saltmarsh of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee) points out that the data from the lithium iodide detector, as it is now known to be, are consistent with Naranjo's claim. In Taleyarkhan's experiment, the 'boron trifluoride' detector observed high levels of gamma rays (gamma-rays) alongside the neutrons, despite the fact that boron trifluoride detectors are not very sensitive to gamma-rays. Taleyarkhan and his colleagues suggest that neutrons from fusion were interacting with the detector's polyethylene coating to produce a slew of rays.  But the lithium iodide detector is more sensitive to gamma-rays, says Saltmarsh, and the lab source posited by Naranjo could easily have provided enough for the levels observed. 

Taleyarkhan's co-author Robert Block, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, disagrees. Block says he and Taleyarkhan still think the observed gamma-rays are produced by fusion neutrons colliding in the polyethylene covering, no matter what the detector.

Purdue University scientist stands by his findings
Bubble Fusion Research Under Scrutiny-  Erico Guizzo  IEEE Spectrum

This past March, Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind., announced that it was initiating a formal review of the bubble fusion research by Taleyarkhan...  Taleyarkhan told IEEE Spectrum that he was surprised by the allegations, which he said had not been discussed with him directly, and that he stands by his work. 
... Though Taleyarkhan and his collaborators are able to provide lucid accounts of how they believe they've achieved bubble fusion, relying on accepted principles of nuclear physics, skepticism centers on whether their neutrons are truly fusion's telltale neutrons 
... In a commentary submitted to Physical Review Letters, Brian Naranjo, a graduate student in Putterman's laboratory, analyzed data published in Taleyarkhan's latest paper and concluded that the energy spectrum presented as coming from neutrons produced in fusion is not the one expected for that type of reaction..... Taleyarkhan's response is that Naranjo "did not model the right experiment." The neutrons, he said, are not flying directly to the detectors placed around the flask; they are reflecting off different materials, such as the liquid, the glass flask, and ice packs that surround the setup. "He did not account for those intervening materials," Taleyarkhan says, adding, "You have a whole rainbow of neutron energies coming out."
Taleyarkhan's collaborator Richard T. Lahey Jr., a professor of engineering and physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y., says that a successful bubble fusion experiment depends heavily on the Pyrex glass flask and the ceramic piezoelectric ring that is attached to it to generate the sound waves. "I have offered to send actual design drawings so that others can build it and use it. Some have taken me up on my offer, but others have not." He says that Putterman was using a design "that was doomed to failure" and that he told him so when visiting his laboratory at UCLA last year.
.... "We had a demonstration, a live demonstration in our lab," Taleyarkhan told Spectrum. To detect the neutrons that he says are proof of fusion, Taleyarkhan used special plastic track detectors. These are transparent rectangles 2 by 1.3 centimeters and about as thick as a credit card that register the passage of neutrons that hit them; the tracks left are observable under a microscope. Taleyarkhan placed two pieces close to the flask and one away from it to serve as the background measurement. After several hours of exposure, only the pieces next to the flask had a significant number of neutron tracks. "It's actually live data. Unambiguous. You don't have to depend on electronics and fancy equipment. You see this thing in front of your eyes," Taleyarkhan says.

      Dr. Melvin H. Miles Cold Fusion Website

    Great new website devoted to cold fusion by one of the best researchers in the field, Dr. Mel Miles, PhD

  Photo gallery
  Dr. Miles' Cold Fusion Internet Links

Does fusion scientist 'hold the secret'? - Deseret News March 24, 2006 Elaine Jarvik

He was ballyhooed and then discredited and then largely forgotten. But cold fusion pioneer Dr. Martin Fleischmann still holds the secret to a cheap energy source for the world, says a California company that plans to produce prototypes of a cold fusion-powered home heater, with Fleischmann as "senior scientific adviser." ... Eventually, though, "when truth and justice are done," says David Kubiak, the University of Utah will bask in the glory of its association with cold fusion. Kubiak is communications director of D2Fusion of Foster City, Calif., and Los Alamos, N.M., which will be hosting Fleischmann and is setting up a lab using his "recipe."

These days, Kubiak says, the term "cold fusion" has generally been replaced by "solid state fusion," "low-energy nuclear reactions" or "nuclear reactions in condensed matter." But the principles are still the same — a fusion reaction produced at normal temperatures using hydrogen-loving metals such as palladium or titanium.
To start with, D2Fusion plans to produce a 2,000-3,000 watt heater that would never need refueling. ...

Kubiak says scores of labs around the world are pursuing cold-fusion techniques, some of them originally inspired by Fleischmann's work in Utah. Fleischmann and Pons originally built their device for $100,000 in the basement of the Henry Eyring Chemistry Building. ....  The researchers now working on the technique "are not tin-pot inventors working out of a garage," he says. "They're top-notch scientists, including a couple of Nobel laureates."  "Instead of arguing any more about the theoretical basis of it," he says, "we're saying 'this works, this is where we should be putting our attention.' "

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. 

  It'll Never Work!         COLD FUSION TIMES - INFORMATION FOR SKEPTICS

"There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." 
- Albert Einstein, 1932. 

                "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." 
[Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre]

          "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." 
[Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895] 

          "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." 
[Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre]

It'll Never Work!COLD FUSION TIMES - INFORMATION FOR SKEPTICS

Make Way For Ethanol - How fields of corn may hold the key to the future’s fuel source
The Guardian -  Katie Westfall 

The alcohol known as ethanol was used as a fuel in the early 20th century before Prohibition criminalized alcohol production, but has recently re-entered the limelight and is now being used as a fuel additive. It replaces the anti-knocking agent known as MBTE, which is being phased out after it was discovered to pollute groundwater. 
Ethanol is most commonly used in a blend known as E10, which is 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline. However, with the development of “flex-fuel” cars specifically built to handle a higher amount of the alcohol, the ethanol industry is pushing for the use of E85, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Currently, there are about five million of these vehicles produced or sold. 
...  The United States is not the first to experiment with alternative fuels, and is, in fact, following in the wake of countries like Brazil, which has been producing ethanol-running cars since the late 1970s. According to an ethanol study conducted by the Solar Energy Research Institute, up to 90 percent of new cars in Brazil run on pure ethanol produced from sugar cane, with the remainder running on a blend of 20 percent ethanol and 80 percent gasoline. 
Although research is not complete, the preliminary experiments and computational studies have shown that, in some aspects, ethanol is better for the environment than gasoline or diesel fuels. 
.....  Saxena thinks that these obstacles can be overcome and that ethanol is a good stepping stone for energy evolution.  “Ethanol as an energy source is a good interim solution until we are able to accomplish hydrogen economy, fuel cells and cold-fusion technologies,” he said.

 Sonofusion - Background : The Star in a Jar

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JET  Energy

PHOTOGRAPH OF PHUSOR CATHODE SHOWS ASYMMETRIC ELECTROLYSIS OF A DIFFERENT TYPE OF COLD FUSION SYSTEM . 
Asymmetric Electrolysis (above) 

Hydrogen fuel cells become faster and greener with new catalyst
Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Idaho have developed a highly efficient catalyst of multi-walled carbon nanotubes decorated with tiny particles of a platinum and ruthenium composite. Preparation is a key factor in determining the activity of a catalyst.
The researchers selected a process using supercritical carbon dioxide, which has the properties of a gas and a liquid. The supercritical fluid technology may result in products and processes that are cleaner, less expensive and of higher quality than those produced using conventional solvents.

Venture capitalist backs biofuel, says country can go down petroleum-free path 
Stanford Report, May 10, 2006
Delivering the keynote address at a Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research forum, titled "Prosperity Despite Expensive Oil: Energy Solutions for California, America and the World," on April 21, (Vinod) Khosla endorsed ethanol technologies, which produce "biofuels" out of switchgrass, wood chips, corn and recycled fast food oil.
"I don't think oil will ever [fall to] $40 a barrel until an alternative appears," Khosla said. "If an alternative appears, we will see the manipulation of oil prices to drive alternatives out of business. This [tax] is to assure Wall Street that [it] will not be subject to oil price manipulation by Saudi Arabia."

Clearwater Man Puts Technology To Work

CLEARWATER -- Working in a small, two-room shop at the Airport Business Center, Klein, 63, said he has developed a gas that speeds welding and fusing times and improves automobile fuel efficiency 30 percent.
Klein said he has a patent pending on the gas he has been working on for 12 years. Various models of his H2O electrolyzers are being used across the country in high school shop classes and undergoing testing to be certified for use in welding shops. Flipping a switch on his H2O 1500, Klein picks up a hose with a metal tip, creates a spark, and instantly a blue and white glowing stream shoots out of the metal tip.
He holds the tip with his fingers to prove how cool it is to the touch, unlike such a tip when oxy-acetylene is burned for welding. But the instant he sets the flame on a charcoal briquette, it glows bright orange. Then, within seconds, he burns a hole through a brick, cuts steel and melts Tungsten.
.... Klein said his method for introducing hydrogen into a vehicle to increase mileage is superior to hydrogen used in fuel cells.

 Rejection leaves bubble-fusion patent high and dry - Eugenie Reich 
"The US patent office has been drawn into the debate over whether bubble fusion has been achieved. In a crushing rejection of a patent application on the phenomenon, patent examiner Ricardo Palabrica concludes that despite the claims for bubble fusion presented in Science1 in 2002, he doesn't believe a word of them. "There is no reputable evidence of record to support any allegations or claims that the invention is capable of operating as indicated," he writes. .... In his assessment, published in September 2005, he attacks Taleyarkhan's claimed invention as "nothing more than a variation" of the discredited concept of cold fusion first put forward in the late 1980s by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, and cites reproducibility concerns as a serious obstacle to obtaining a patent. "The statute requires the applicant to inform, not to direct others to find out for themselves [how to reproduce the invention]," he writes. .... The rejection could have been appealed but in December 2005 the DOE instead abandoned the claim altogether. A version of the patent filed in 2002 at the World Intellectual Property Organization is still under review in many countries." 

 
Radioactive material found under N.Y. plant
High levels of strontium detected in groundwater near Hudson River

The radioactive leak in groundwater near the Hudson River came from the Indian Point nuclear power plant located in Buchanan, N.Y. 
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - High levels of a radioactive material — nearly three times the amount permitted in drinking water — were found in groundwater near the Hudson River beneath a nuclear plant, the owner said Tuesday. The groundwater does not intersect drinking supplies, and although the strontium-90 is believed to have reached the Hudson it would be safely diluted in the river, said Jim Steets, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast. The strontium ...  was found in a well dug in a search for the source of a leak of radioactive water at the Indian Point complex, about 30 miles north of New York City.  NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Tuesday that the commission still believes that radioactivity in the water — given that it is not drinking water — is well below the level that would "pose a risk to public health and safety." 
Entergy said water samples were taken at four depths in the well. Strontium levels, in picocuries per liter, were 2.4, 3.86, 18.2, and 22.7. The drinking water limit is 8. Tritium, which becomes dangerous only at much higher concentrations than strontium, was found at 12,800, 14,700, 28,000 and 13,300 picocuries per liter. The drinking water limit is 20,000.

"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad." 
- 'Advice' from a president of the Michigan Savings Bank to Henry Ford's lawyer Horace Rackham. Rackham ignored the advice and invested $5000 in Ford stock, selling it later for $12.5 million. 

     "... after a few more flashes in the pan, we shall hear very little more of Edison or his electric lamp. Every claim he makes has been tested and proved impracticable." 
          [New York Times, January 16, 1880] 

Chinese experimental thermonuclear reactor on discharge test in July - People's Daily 

China's new generation experimental Tokamak fusion device will conduct its first discharge test in July or August this year. If the experiments prove successful, it would be the world's first experimental nuclear fusion device to come into operation. . ... China has provided the project, dubbed the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), with an investment of 165 million yuan (about 20 million U.S. dollars). 
Using deuterium, which is in seawater, as fuel for reaction, a hydrogen plasma torus operating at over 100 million Celsius degrees will produce 500 megawatts of fusion power. The development of ITER is based on the idea of edging out irrecycled mineral resources such as uranium and plutonium. 
The EAST is an upgrade of China's first superconducting Tokamak device, dubbed HT-7, which was also built by the plasma physics institute in 1994. The HT-7 made China the fourth country in the world, after Russia, France and Japan, to have such a device. 

Building with light materials

Japan - A building under construction in Japan will use natural light to illuminate its rooms, even during the night.
Japanese construction company Shimizu and electronics giant Sharp have jointly developed a transparent building material that absorbs light during the day and uses it to light up rooms when the Sun goes down. The material is being used to construct a new office complex in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, on the south eastern edge of Japan. 
Sections of the office's walls look transparent, but actually contain incredibly thin solar panels and as many as 320 light-emitting diodes that release whitish-blue light at night. .... the walls can convert 7% of solar energy into electricity and illuminate the building for an average of 4.6 hours every night.

 More cold water on fusion theory - Fascination with cold fusion Persists  - Apr. 15, 2006 Toronto Star - Jay Ingram 

It sounds weird, but in certain special circumstances, sound waves in a liquid can cause bubbles to collapse, and when they do they produce huge amounts (relative to their size, anyway) of energy. They can also reach temperatures that could sustain fusion. Taleyarkhan has seen this happen, more than once.

Nuclear fusion - Once is happenstance - Mar 9, 2006 
The Economist 

MAKE a mistaken claim in any branch of science, and endeavours in that field may be tainted for years. Faced with two such claims, the field is definitely in trouble. And that now seems to be the case for so-called “tabletop fusion”. .... Dr Naranjo took his data from a paper published by Dr Taleyarkhan in January. This appeared in an electronic format that allowed him to deduce those data from the graphs it showed, even though the raw numbers were not published. He argues that the resulting neutron energies are consistent with the decay of a standard radioactive source called 2{+5}2californium. Dr Taleyarkhan's description of his method explicitly excludes the possibility of such a source being present. Moreover, if Dr Naranjo is correct, 2{+5}2californium would appear to be present only in the experimental runs using deuterated acetone and not in the control experiments using normal acetone, pointing to the possibility of direct human interference. There is a certain amount of “history” between the two scientists. Dr Naranjo works in the laboratory of Seth Putterman, one of three researchers who peer-reviewed Dr Taleyarkhan's original Science paper and did not like it. When the journal published the paper anyway, Dr Putterman went public, arguing that Dr Taleyarkhan had not ruled out several potential sources of error in his paper. ... Moreover, the American patent office has quietly but firmly rejected Dr Taleyarkhan's bubble-fusion device. An application for a patent was filed in 2003, when he was still at Oak Ridge, on behalf of the Department of Energy, which funded the work. On December 27th last year the department formally abandoned the claim. Ricardo Palabrica of the Patent Office had described the application as “no more than just an unproven concept”.

Rejection leaves bubble-fusion patent high and dry - Eugenie Reich 
"The US patent office has been drawn into the debate over whether bubble fusion has been achieved. In a crushing rejection of a patent application on the phenomenon, patent examiner Ricardo Palabrica concludes that despite the claims for bubble fusion presented in Science1 in 2002, he doesn't believe a word of them. "There is no reputable evidence of record to support any allegations or claims that the invention is capable of operating as indicated," he writes. .... In his assessment, published in September 2005, he attacks Taleyarkhan's claimed invention as "nothing more than a variation" of the discredited concept of cold fusion first put forward in the late 1980s by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, and cites reproducibility concerns as a serious obstacle to obtaining a patent. "The statute requires the applicant to inform, not to direct others to find out for themselves [how to reproduce the invention]," he writes. .... The rejection could have been appealed but in December 2005 the DOE instead abandoned the claim altogether. A version of the patent filed in 2002 at the World Intellectual Property Organization is still under review in many countries."

Purdue University investigating 'sonofusion' claims - PhysOrgForum 
"I have asked Purdue's Office of the Vice President of Research to conduct a thorough review of the work and any concerns expressed about it," Purdue Provost Sally Mason said in a statement published on the university website. The research claims are very significant, and the allegations are very serious. As in any scientific endeavor, Purdue's ultimate goals are truth and integrity," she added.  Taleyarkhan first published his research findings four years ago in Science magazine and later in several prestigious scientific journals. He claimed to have generated nuclear reactions by creating tiny bubbles that implode with tremendous force. .... Purdue said Talyarkhan and his co-authors stand by their findings and that the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency continued to fund sonofusion research at Purdue and at other universities.

Scientist Says He Stands by Fusion Data - March 9, 2006 Kenneth Chang
"A nuclear scientist at Purdue said yesterday that he would cooperate with the university's review of his fusion research. "From a technical point, we stand by our data," said the scientist, Rusi P. Taleyarkhan, a professor of nuclear engineering. Dr. Taleyarkhan said that he saw the article for the first time yesterday and that his Purdue colleagues' complaints "came as a major surprise to me."

College Reviews Physicist's Tabletop Fusion Claims
Evidence suggests the Purdue researcher's data are flawed
He stands by his work  - Thomas H. Maugh II 
Taleyarkhan expressed confidence that Purdue's review would vindicate his claims, but other researchers said the evidence was likely to be a death knell for the controversial technology, which proponents had claimed would eventually become a major energy source. ... Taleyarkhan has been "negligent or jumped the gun or concocted data — one of those — and has distracted us from a serious problem at the frontiers of research," said UCLA physicist Seth J. Putterman ....  Taleyarkhan reported that he generated bubbles using neutrons to bombard acetone whose hydrogen atoms had been replaced with deuterium, then collapsed the bubbles with a blast of ultrasonic energy.  He said he observed neutrons and tritium, both byproducts of the fusion of deuterium atoms. He submitted a paper to the journal Science, where it was published over the vehement objections of three separate reviewers: Suslick, Putterman and physicist Lawrence A. Crum of the University of Washington.

Is bubble fusion simply hot air? Concerns gather momentum over claims for table-top energy production
In 2002, Taleyarkhan claimed to have demonstrated this effect, generating energy by fusing the nuclei of deuterium, a heavier isotope of hydrogen, inside collapsing bubbles2, and followed it in 2004 with further positive results3.
But his results have been controversial from the start. When Science published Taleyarkhan's initial paper, the three researchers who peer-reviewed the work took the unusual step of shedding their anonymity to criticize the journal's decision to publish4. The three - Seth Putterman of the University of California, Los Angeles, Ken Suslick of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Lawrence Crum of the University of Washington in Seattle - argued that Taleyarkhan had not ruled out several potential sources of error in his paper.

Purdue scientist is under scrutiny  -  Will Higgins
Purdue University is reviewing allegations that one of its professors, a scientist who claims he has developed a way to produce nuclear fusion in a test tube, misrepresented his research findings. 
 In a telephone interview Wednesday, Rusi Taleyarkhan, a member of Purdue's faculty since 2004, said he stands by his work "absolutely."  Last spring, two junior Purdue researchers, post-doctoral research associate Yiban Xu and graduate research assistant Adam Butt, claimed to have confirmed Taleyarkhan's findings in research published in the magazine Nuclear Engineering and Design. Xu and Butt's research was the first confirmation of Taleyarkhan's work.  Xu said Wednesday he stands by his study. Butt could not be reached for comment.

Bubble bursts for table-top fusion - Data analysis calls bubble fusion into question - Eugenie Samuel Reich 
Putterman has been a key critic of Taleyarkhan's work since 2002, when Taleyarkhan first published his claim to have achieved bubble fusion. Putterman and others argue that Taleyarkhan has not been able to rule out several potential sources of error in his experiment. In particular, they were concerned that the source of neutrons Taleyarkhan used to seed bubble formation in the liquid could have been responsible for the neutrons detected during the experiment and cited as evidence for fusion.  But Naranjo and Putterman say that the spectrum that Taleyarkhan claims proves neutrons were generated by fusion looks nothing like it should given the equipment used. ... "The published spectrum is totally inconsistent with that of 2.45 MeV neutrons, raising doubt over the fusion claim," says Naranjo. The spectrum for such neutrons should have a hump in the middle and a sharp cut-off at higher energies.

Scientists unplug tabletop fusion - Chris Williams March 8, 2006
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the original announcement and four years in which nobody outside Taleyarkhan's research group has been able to reproduce the positive results.
Taleyarkhan's big idea of sonoluminescent fusion involves firing soundwaves at a container of bubbling acetone "seeded" with a beam of neutrons....Taleyarkhan defended his findings in a 2005 episode of the BBC's Horizon strand, protesting: "My lab has been audited, my instruments have been audited, my books have been audited, the data speaks for itself."

 University to Investigate Fusion Study - Kenneth Chang  March 8, 2006
Purdue University has opened an investigation into "extremely serious" concerns regarding the research of a professor who said he had produced nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment... Taleyarkhan..  said they were able to achieve the same feat by blasting a container of liquid solvent with strong ultrasonic vibrations. 
... Brian Naranjo, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, [CFTimes Ed: Naranjo is co-author with Seth Putterman of a competing system] said his analysis of data from the last scientific paper that was published by Dr. Taleyarkhan's group showed a chance of less than one in 10 million that the emission pattern could have been generated by fusion.  Instead, Mr. Naranjo said that the pattern of particles seen in the experiment much more closely matched that given off by californium

(WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Taleyarkhan, whose study was published while he was at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, now works at Purdue 
University in Indiana and has also been trying to replicate his earlier findings. 
... Naranjo's lab reported in April 2005 that it had achieved cold fusion by heating a lithium crystal soaked in deuterium gas. ... In his original report, published in the journal Science in 2002, Talayarkhan and colleagues said they created nuclear fusion in a beaker of chemically altered acetone by bombarding it with neutrons and then sound waves to make bubbles.

 
FRee Republic: University checks "bubble fusion" fraud claim (cold fusion fraud)
"As anyone who has paid attention to the cold fusion committee in the past 15 years, you would know that if literally God himself handed a working prototype that produced cold fusion, the cold fusion committee would call it a fraud. It's never enough with them."

---

Biodiesel now.com
"It does seem that it is the group at UC that is raising the biggest stink about this claim, and since they have a competing claim of table-top fusion of their own, it does raise questions about their impartiality."

Experts argue about Cold fusion  Haiko Lietz - Handelsblatt, March 23, 2006, p.11

"At present a public dispute raves over "bubble fusion" among physicists, which is often called "cold fusion"; both promise fusion energy without much expenditure. Rusi Taleyarkhan of the Purdue university in Indiana  uses fusion of hydrogen atoms in the solvent acetone, after its hydrogen atoms were replaced by deuterium (heavy hydrogen with neutron in the core) in an ultrasonic field. 
With fusion much energy becomes free. Controlled "hot fusion" after the model of the sun is considered as the energy source of the future.   ... Cold fusion was presented today 17 years ago by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons as deuterium fusion at ambient temperature. The two chemistry professors maintained it in a cathode of the precious metal palladium. Since that time cold fusion has been continuously investigated. 
The "most convincing evidence" would come from Germany. Physicists of the Technical University of Berlin even measured abnormally high fusion rates in metals with accelerator experiments in a temperature range between hot and cold fusion in palladium and an unexpected weakening of neutron production. These results were published recently in the "European Physical Journal A".
"Although cold fusion has the potential to solve our energy problems it is a red cloth for science and politics", says Jan Marwan. The chemist terminated his academic career, to develop cold fusion as a commercial energy source in his lab in Berlin."

 
Cheap Hydrogen Fuel: GE says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable
Technology Review   March 9, 2006 - David Talbot 

GE says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable, by slashing the cost of water-splitting technology. ...Now researchers at GE say they've come up with a less expensive, easy-to-manufacture apparatus that can directly produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per kilogram -- a quantity roughly comparable to a gallon of gasoline -- down from today's $8 per kilogram. That could make it economically practical for future fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen...... Bourgeois' research team came up with a way to make future electrolyzers largely out of plastic. They used a GE plastic called Noryl that is extremely resistant to the highly alkaline potassium hydroxide. And because the plastic is easy to form and join, manufacturing an electrolyzer is relatively cheap. Inside the plastic housing, metal electrodes still do the same job. But because GE is using less electrode material, the reactivity of the electrodes' surfaces is improved. To do this, the researchers borrowed a spray-coating process -- normally used to apply coatings for parts on jet engines -- to coat the electrodes with a proprietary nickel-based catalyst with a large surface area.

Dr Mills first came across quantum mechanics after graduating in medicine from Harvard and taking up post-graduate studies in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Struck by the weirdness of the theory, he set about devising a radically different account of the sub-atomic world, based on ideas from Victorian physics. 
In a series of papers published in academic journals, he argues for a new picture of the hydrogen atom, with the lone electron whizzing around a central proton replaced with a spherical shell of electric charge. .... According to Dr Mills, this simple modification utterly transforms the physics of the atom. While all the successes of conventional quantum mechanics are kept, a whole raft of solutions to previously insoluble problems emerge – such as the predictions of the properties of molecules.  ....  Whether his theory is right is ultimately irrelevant, however. What really matters is whether hot hydrogen can be persuaded to give out more energy than it takes in, making it a viable power source.

 

No future for [hot] fusion power, says top scientist
March 9 2006, NewScientist - David L Chandler

Nuclear fusion will never be a practical source of electrical power, argues a prominent scientist in the journal Science.  Even nuclear fusion’s staunchest advocates admit a power-producing fusion plant is still decades away at best, despite forty years of hard work and well over $20 billion spent on the research. But the new paper, personally backed by the journal’s editor, issues a strong challenge to the entire fusion programme, arguing that the whole massive endeavour is never likely to lead to anything practical or useful.  "The history of this dream is as discouraging as it is expensive," wrote William Parkins, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project during the second world war, who later became the chief scientist at US engineering firm Rockwell International.  ...The issues include the potentially prohibitive costs of building, and the difficulties of repairing and maintaining the reaction vessel. This massive "blanket" of lithium and rare metals – that must surround the fusion-generating plasma in order to absorb its emitted neutrons – will degrade and become radioactive over time, requiring regular dismantling and replacement.  But Porkolab concedes that a functioning power-producing fusion reactor is probably 50 years off, and that is too far in the future for any reasonable conclusions to be drawn on its economic viability. "It depends on what the price of oil is going to be 50 years from now," he says.

Did "Dark Matter" Create the First Stars?  - Max Planck Society  March, 15 2006 

"Dark matter could be "sterile" neutrinos, whose decay led to the formation of stars in the early universe 
Dark matter may have played a major role in creating stars at the very beginnings of the universe. If that is the case, however, the dark matter must consist of particles called "sterile neutrinos". ... when sterile neutrinos decay, it speeds up the creation of molecular hydrogen. This process could have helped light up the first stars only some 20 to 100 million years after the big bang. This first generation of stars then ionised the gas surrounding them, some 150 to 400 million years after the big bang. All of this provides a simple explanation to some rather puzzling observations concerning dark matter, neutron stars, and antimatter (Physical Review Letters, March 10, 2006).
 The total number of sterile neutrinos in the universe is unclear. If a sterile neutrino only has a mass of a few kiloelectronvolts (1 keV is a millionth of the mass of a hydrogen atom), that would explain the huge, missing mass in the universe, sometimes called "dark matter".  ... sterile neutrinos can help explain the absence of antimatter in the universe. In the early universe, sterile neutrinos could have "stolen" what is called the "lepton number" from plasma. At a later time, the lack of lepton number was converted to a non-zero baryon number. The resulting asymmetry between baryons (like protons) and antibaryons (like antiprotons) could be the reason why the universe has no antimatter." 

Sterile neutrinos: references and links

"Pulsars are neutron stars rotating at a very high velocity. They are created in supernova explosions and normally are ejected in one direction. The explosion gives them a "push", like a rocket engine. Pulsars can have velocities of hundreds of kilometres per second - or sometimes even thousands. The origin of these velocities remains unknown, but the emission of sterile neutrinos would explain the pulsar kicks."

 

Air Force committed to energy-efficient strategies
 3/6/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- The Air Force continues its pledge to be a leader in energy stewardship. According to Dr. Sega, the Air Force is also looking at alternative sources of energy, from potential conversion of natural gas or coal to jet fuel, to increased use of renewable energy sources.
 

Nuclear Reactors Top Dubai Ports' Cargo List
Nuclear reactors are among the most significant U.S. exports shipped out of five of the six ports slated for takeover by a Dubai company next week. ... The Port of Miami unloads 1,247 ships annually. There the two top products are "apparel [and] nuclear reactors." 
 

Alternative-Energy Stocks Shine As High Oil Costs Here To Stay

 
IMPORTANT FUSION, ENERGY, and NUCLEAR UPDATES
Toshiba faces hurdles to buy Westinghouse
TOKYO - The head of Toshiba had good reason to sound a trifle defensive about his company's $5.4 billion purchase of U.S. nuclear power company Westinghouse. ...following the announcement earlier this month that the electronics company will buy Monroeville, Pa.-based Westinghouse Electric Co. from British Nuclear Fuels PLC. .... Toshiba has built 22 nuclear power plants in Japan since entering the business in 1966, and is building another one here and two in Taiwan.
.... By acquiring Westinghouse, Toshiba becomes the world's No. 1 nuclear power company, with a 28 percent share in the global market, Nishida said. 

U.S., Britain conduct nuclear experiment at Nevada Test Site
LAS VEGAS (AP) - U.S. and British government scientists performed an underground nuclear experiment, short of a nuclear blast, Tuesday at the Nevada Test Site, the National Nuclear Security Administration said.  Scientists for the first time posted a nearly eight minute video Web log of preparations for the subcritical experiment. The operation, dubbed "Krakatau," involved detonating high explosives around a radioactive material in a vault about 1,000 feet below ground at a remote part of the desert testing range. 

U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Site Office
Historical Test Films

 Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab Ker Than 
Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit. ...They don't know how they did it. The feat was accomplished in the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories. Thermonuclear explosions are estimated to reach only tens to hundreds of millions of degrees Kelvin; other nuclear fusion experiments have achieved temperatures of about 500 million degrees Kelvin, said a spokesperson at the lab. The achievement was detailed in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world. It’s designed to test materials under extreme temperatures and pressures. It works by releasing 20 million amps of electricity into a vertical array of very fine tungsten wires. The wires dissolve into a cloud of charged particles, a superheated gas called plasma. A very strong magnetic field compresses the plasma into the thickness of a pencil lead. .... Sandia researchers still aren’t sure how the machine achieved the new record. Part of it is probably due to the replacement of the tungsten steel wires with slightly thicker steel wires, which allow the plasma ions to travel faster and thus achieve higher temperatures.

Whatever Happened to Cold Fusion?   Susan Kruglinski
DISCOVER 27, 3   March 2006

 "In 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made front-page news when they announced that they had fused the nuclei of atoms in a jar of water—a process that normally requires the heat of an H-bomb. In theory, room-temperature, or "cold," fusion could provide cheap, nearly limitless energy. No replication of the experiment could pass muster with critics, and most researchers dismissed the work as bogus."

Cold Fusion Times:  This is nonsense.  Multiple replications followed, and they should have satisfied pathological critics IF they were really able to read and understand science.
"Still, a few physicists keep the field alive and kicking. "There's something in the neighborhood of 20 basic experiments out there these days that are of interest," says MIT physicist Peter Hagelstein.  ... The scientists who continue to work in the field claim that their experiments show minute, unexplained outputs of energy.. .... Hagelstein insists that those beyond the inner circle don't know the whole story. ""

Cold Fusion Times:  Incorrect. Very large amounts of excess heat develop in successful experiments which are much greater than 'minute'.  Energy gains of 200-300% beyond the input have been reported over and over.
Discover Magazine, like the pathological critics, OUGHT to consider actually reading the papers, journals, and conference proceedings OR subscribe to the COLD FUSION TIMES.

 
Strategy Kinetics  - Overcoming Uncertainty 
Through Dynamic Strategy Development And Implementation

  Cold Fusion

"....  You may remember that in the 1980s, chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann created a sensation when they announced they had produced excess energy -- more out than went in -- in a table-top experiment. The source of this excess energy was cold fusion, sometimes referred to as Low Energy Nuclear Reactions ("LENR"). ... 
Many tried to duplicate the Pons and Fleischmann results. Some at MIT failed to reproduce the results although there has been a long running battle over falsified data, misrepresentation, and the intrusion of funding politics and the defense of scientific reputations related to the negative MIT results. Based on these and other negative results, the Department of Energy has for a long time not taken serious any of the positive cold fusion results. And for the most part, the US Patent Office has refused for a long time to grant patents explicitly relating to cold fusion, although a few following the original Pons and Fleischmann results.
Turns out that it's not easy to do the proper experiments and for a couple of reasons. First, calorimetry - roughly the science of heat measurement - is a difficult and some would say a dying art. More importantly, according to some, is that most experiments did not use controls, a foundation of much experimental science. In the experimental sciences, results are always in comparison to something. ...
 

 
Here's what I believe to be the consensus views of those working in the field: 
Cold Fusion is real and has been reproduced many times in several labs around the world. 
The hurricanes that blow against the reality of CF are driven in large part by those whose economic interests are threatened if CF is real, namely carbon-based energy industries and the hot fusion research community. 
.... The research continues to accumulate on both the experimental and theoretical fronts. The open question seems to be when the CF community will reach the tipping point."

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Cold Fusion Redux

"So the future of energy just might include Cold Fusion..."
'AFTER 16 years, it's back. In fact, cold fusion never really went away. Over a 10-year period from 1989, US navy labs ran more than 200 experiments to investigate whether nuclear reactions generating more energy than they consume - supposedly only possible inside stars - can occur at room temperature. ... according to David Nagel, an engineer at George Washington University in Washington DC. Superconductors took 40 years to explain, he points out, so there's no reason to dismiss cold fusion. "The experimental case is bulletproof," he says. "You can't make it go away."'

Peak Oil Scenarios

Quantum computer works best switched off   NewScientist   February 22 2006

"A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running. 
The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger's cat to hit "Run". 
With the right set-up, the theory suggested, the computer would sometimes get an answer out of the computer even though the program did not run. ...

They send a photon into a system of mirrors and other optical devices, which included a set of components that run a simple database search by changing the properties of the photon. 
The new design includes a quantum trick called the Zeno effect. Repeated measurements stop the photon from entering the actual program, but allow its quantum nature to flirt with the program's components - so it can become gradually altered even though it never actually passes through. 

"It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is," says team member Onur Hosten."

Nature (vol 439, p 949) 
New Scientist magazine, 2540, 22 February 2006, page 21

 

Nanoscience Study Shows That Quantum Dots "Talk"  - Feb 21, 2006 , Christina Dierkes

Athens, Ohio — "Scientists who hope to use quantum dots as the building blocks for the next generation of computers have found a way to make these artificial atoms communicate. 

“Essentially, the dots talk to each other,” said Ameenah Al-Ahmadi. ... The dots are tiny, engineered spherical crystals about 5 nanometers in diameter. An average biological cell, in comparison, has a diameter of about 1,000 nanometers. Researchers believe that quantum dots will be extremely useful in developing nanoscale technologies because they are versatile and uniform, which could eliminate possible variations and flaws in materials. 

In the recent study, the researchers were the first to use theoretical models to show how light energy shining on quantum dots would prompt them to transfer energy in a “coherent” fashion. They found that when the dots were arranged a certain distance from each other – greater than the radius of the dots – light waves traveled between the nanocrystals in a consistent pattern. In previous research, the light’s wavelength would change or become irregular during the energy exchange, which creates a breakdown in communication between quantum dots..... 

The applications of the new quantum dot technology also could include medical imaging. Quantum dots could be injected into the patient, and a device containing more quantum dots could be used to show the position of dots under the skin. Current biology research has had great success with this type of imaging in mouse models, Ulloa said. The dots have fewer side effects than contrast chemicals used in X-rays, and may eventually replace traditional contrast media." 
 

2006 APS Meeting  on  Cold Fusion

Cold Fusion – A 17 Year Retrospective  - Michael McKubre , Francis Tanzella

Recent Developments in Cold Fusion / Condensed Matter Nuclear Science - Steven Krivit 

Role of Finite Size in Triggering Excess Heat: Why Nanoscale PdD Crystals Turn on Faster - Scott Chubb

Resolving the Laughlin Paradox - Talbot Chubb 

Dynamics of Non-linear Soft X-Ray Emission from a Plasma Discharge-Driven Hydride Target  George H. Miley , Yang Yang , Michael Romer , Munima Haque , Ian Percel , Andrei Lipson , Heinz Hora 

Control of Tardive Thermal Power - Mitchell Swartz 
 

 

2006 APS Meeting  on  Cold Fusion (cont.)

Progress in Excess of Power Experiments with Electrochemical Loading of Deuterium in Palladium
V. Violante , M. Bertolotti , E. Castagna , C. Sibilia , Irv Dardik , S. Lesin , T. Ziloy , F. Sarto , F. Tanzella , Michael C. H. McKubre 

Cavitation Foil Damage - Roger Stringham 

Isoperibolic Calorimetry Applied To The Pt/D2O Blank System - Martin Fleischmann , Melvin Miles 

New Mechanism of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Using Superlow Energy Fields - F.A. Gareev , I.E. Zhidkova 

Comments on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science - Xing Z. Li , Bin Liu , Qing M. Wei , Shu X. Zheng , Dong X. Cao 

Excess heat observed during electrolysis of deuterated phosphoric acid with palladium electrodes and a solid state electrolyte in deuterium gas - J.-P. Biberian , G. Lonchampt 

Creating an International Scientific Society as an Act of Scientific Rebellion - William Collis 
 

Nanotube ultracapacitors would store energy on atomic level, providing what is said to be the first technologically significant and economically viable alternative to conventional batteries in more than 200 years. 
 Carbon nanotubes are key to MIT researchers' efforts to improve on an energy storage device called an ultracapacitor.

Capacitors store energy as an electrical field, making them more efficient than standard batteries, which get their energy from chemical reactions. Ultracapacitors are capacitor-based storage cells that provide quick, massive bursts of instant energy. .. The LEES ultracapacitor has the capacity to overcome this energy limitation by using vertically aligned, single-wall carbon nanotubes -- one thirty-thousandth the diameter of a human hair and 100,000 times as long as they are wide. ...Storage capacity in an ultracapacitor is proportional to the surface area of the electrodes. Today's ultracapacitors use electrodes made of activated carbon, which is extremely porous and therefore has a very large surface area. However, the pores in the carbon are irregular in size and shape, which reduces efficiency. The vertically aligned nanotubes in the LEES ultracapacitor have a regular shape, and a size that is only several atomic diameters in width. The result is a significantly more effective surface area, which equates to significantly increased storage capacity.

"The MIT team's new lithium battery contains manganese and nickel, which are cheaper than cobalt.
Scientists already knew that lithium nickel manganese oxide could store a lot of energy, but the material took too long to charge to be commercially useful. The MIT researchers set out to modify the material's structure to make it capable of charging and discharging more quickly..... Lithium nickel manganese oxide consists of layers of metal (nickel and manganese) separated from lithium layers by oxygen. The major problem with the compound was that the crystalline structure was too "disordered," meaning that the nickel and lithium were drawn to each other, interfering with the flow of lithium ions and slowing down the charging rate.
Lithium ions carry the battery's charge, so to maximize the speed at which the battery can charge and discharge, the researchers designed and synthesized a material with a very ordered crystalline structure, allowing lithium ions to freely flow between the metal layers. A battery made from the new material can charge or discharge in about 10 minutes -- about 10 times faster than the unmodified lithium nickel manganese oxide."

 

UPCOMING COLD FUSION MEETINGS:

23-25 September 2006:  The 7th International Workshop on Anomalies in Hydrogen / Deuterium Loaded Metals - Asti, Italy

10-15 June 2007:  ICCF13 - Sochi, Russia at the Dagomys Hotel - Dr. Yuri Bazhutov

2008: ICCF14 - Washington DC, US

 
The only way to make photovoltaic energy more widely used, is to make devices (including solar panels) that are much cheaper than the current silicon-based devices. The most promising PV material identified to date is Copper-Indium-Gallium-Diselenide (CIGS).  CIGS is much more efficient than silicon at converting incident sunlight into an electric current: Less than one micron of CIGS absorbs more than 99% of available incident solar energy, compared to 350 microns of silicon to do the same job.

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“Dark energy” might not exist, scientists say

A growing number of researchers claim a mysterious “dark energy,” which most cosmologists believe fills space, might not exist. Instead, they say, the laws of gravity might need some correction. ... 
In a new paper, three researchers say they can account for the accelerated expansion by tweaking the laws of gravity, with no need for dark energy. ... 
Not unlike dark energy, dark matter is an unseen substance that astronomers believe pervades the cosmos, but it is different. Dark matter, which would comprise more than 90% of the weight of the universe, is thought to betray its existence through its gravitational pull on nearby objects. ...
.The accelerated cosmic expansion, which prompted the dark energy idea, was detected in 1998 through observations of distant exploding stars known as supernovae. Two separate groups found supernovae that were dimmer, and thus further away, than they should have been if the universe was expanding at a steady rate, as was then believed. 
The key to the proposal from Mena’s team is that gravity is modified in such a way that the change is noticeable only at the largest distance scales—the only scales over which the accelerated expansion is evident. 

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Pond life: the future of energy - Hydrogen-producing algae breakthrough - Chris Williams 

Genetic engineers have made a leap in developing a strain of algae with the potential to supply fuel for a future hydrogen economy, Wired reports. Unpublished work from the University of California at Berkeley may have brought the technology past the economically viable 10 per cent efficiency level. By shortening the chlorophyll stacks in the photosynthetic organelles, plant physiologist Tasios Melis has "probably" passed the threshold. 
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells alternate between trapping carbon dioxide by photosysnesis and hydrogen production. Research has already ramped-up the rate by a factor of 100,000 by isolating the algae from sulphur, and groups are working to further improve it. One problem is the hydrogenase enzyme, which releases the precious fuel, cannot currently function in the presence of oxygen - but photosynthesis produces oxygen. 

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Tapping Rocks for Power
A European consortium is drawing closer to building a megawatt-scale power plant that uses bedrock heat -  Peter Fairley

Spend time in the French village of Soultz-sous-Forêts and you're likely to experience a manmade earthquake. The vibrations -- some as high as 2.87 on the Richter scale -- are the most conspicuous element of a renewable energy research program that may succeed where others have failed. By fracturing granite bedrock located five kilometers below the surface and pumping in super-saline water, a team of French, German, and Swiss engineers are extracting the rock's thermal energy, and they plan to use it to produce pollution-free electricity. .... By this time next year, they expect to be transforming this heat into at least 1.5 megawatts of renewable power for the grid. 

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Scientists back nuclear power to help beat global warming - James Kirkup

NUCLEAR power must be part of attempts to address global warming, according to a government-sponsored study of climate change. In an apocalyptic assessment endorsed by Tony Blair, an international group of scientists warned in the study published yesterday that increasing temperatures caused by the greenhouse effect pose a pressing threat to humanity.... Governments should use a variety of means to cut emissions in "wedges", including increasing energy efficiency, nuclear energy, low-emission transport fuels and fossil-fuel power plants with carbon-capture technology, they said.

HONOLULU - In a state where tropical sunshine is near constant and electricity costs twice the national average, solar power seems an easy answer.  But with the panels that produce the electricity already popular abroad and a batch of new domestic tax credits just kicking in, solar suppliers locally and around the globe are scrambling for stock. ... The problem is that while demand for solar panels is increasing, the ability to meet that demand hasn’t caught up, said Reed, president of the Hawaii Solar Energy Association.
The material used is known as polysilicon, a form of silicon refined to form crystals that are then sliced into wafers used to form the silicon cells for solar panels or the microchips in computers and cell phones. In 2006 the solar industry is on track to use more of the silicon, known as polysilicon, than the entire semiconductor industry, Resch said.  “We’ve grown to such a point that there is no available polysilicon feedstock to continue to put into the solar industry so that we can grow at that rate,” he said. ... Contract prices are coming in at $70 per kilogram, up from $30 per kilogram just two years ago, she said.

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Bio-diesel car rental opens in world's car capital

LOS ANGELES - A company offering rental cars powered entirely by bio-diesel set up shop in Los Angeles on Tuesday, hoping to bring the aroma of popcorn and doughnuts to the city's smoggy freeways.
Just one snag -- there is only one place in town to fill up. Bio-Beetle Eco Rental Cars, which started out on the Hawaiian island of Maui three years ago, opened for business near Los Angeles International Airport with four cars fueled by filtered vegetable oil.. ... Bio-diesel costs $3.45 a gallon -- about $1 more than regular gas -- but the cars get between 400 and 800 miles per tank. There is only one place where customers can fill up but Stenshol said he hoped to help set up other refueling stations in the Los Angeles metro area.

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Milestones and Trends in Renewable Energy -- 2005 and 2006
Reflecting on major milestones in clean energy technology advancement in 2005, with a look forward to probable developments in 2006.

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What Lies Beneath the Void
Professor Chris Binns (Physics and Astronomy) on his exciting project connected to the 'zero-point energy' of space. Three thousand years ago the Greek philosophers Leucippus and his student Demokritos proposed the concept of the atom, as a fundamental building block of materials, in order to circumvent a paradox that arises with continuous elements (such as earth fire air and water). They pointed out that if matter was really a continuum then you could cut it into smaller and smaller pieces ad infinitum and, in principle, cut it out of existence into pieces of nothing that could not then be reassembled. Thus, they reasoned, there must be a smallest piece of matter that could not be further divided the a-tomon (uncuttable) from which the word atom is derived. 

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Magnetic Power Inc. is Nearing Pre-Production Stage with Zero Point Energy Modules
Modules built with off-the-shelf components are expected to generate electricity anywhere, any time, for less than 1 cent per kilowatt-hour.  One kW modules expected for market early next year.

 

     NY team confirms UCLA tabletop fusion Science Blog
2/13/2006

"Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of an earlier experiment conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), while offering substantial improvements over the original design.
The device, which uses two opposing crystals to generate a powerful electric field, could potentially lead to a portable, battery-operated neutron generator for a variety of applications, from non-destructive testing to detecting explosives and scanning luggage at airports. The new results are described in the Feb. 10 issue of Physical Review Letters.  ...
The device is essentially a tabletop particle accelerator. At its heart are two opposing "pyroelectric" crystals that create a strong electric field when heated or cooled. The device is filled with deuterium gas -- a more massive cousin of hydrogen with an extra neutron in its nucleus. The electric field rips electrons from the gas, creating deuterium ions and accelerating them into a deuterium target on one of the crystals. "
 

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An internal view of the vacuum chamber containing the fusion device, 
showing two pyroelectric crystals that generate a powerful electric field when heated or cooled. 

Credit: Rensselaer/Danon

     Double crystal fusion' could pave the way for portable device

"Our study shows that 'crystal fusion' is a mature technology with considerable commercial potential," says Yaron Danon, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer. "This new device is simpler and less expensive than the previous version, and it has the potential to produce even more neutrons."

A research team led by Seth Putterman, professor of physics at UCLA, reported on a similar apparatus in 2005, but two important features distinguish the new device: "Our device uses two crystals instead of one, which doubles the acceleration potential," says Jeffrey Geuther, a graduate student in nuclear engineering at Rensselaer and lead author of the paper. "And our setup does not require cooling the crystals to cryogenic temperatures -- an important step that reduces both the complexity and the cost of the equipment." 
The new study also verified the fundamental physics behind the original experiment. This suggests that pyroelectric crystals are in fact a viable means of producing nuclear fusion, and that commercial applications may be closer than originally thought, according to Danon. 

The concept could also lead to a portable x-ray generator, according to Danon. "There is already a commercial portable pyroelectric x-ray product available, but it does not produce enough energy to provide the 50,000 electron volts needed for medical imaging," he says. "Our device is capable of producing about 200,000 electron volts, which could meet these requirements and could also be enough to penetrate several millimeters of steel." 

In the more distant future, Danon envisions a number of other medical applications of pyroelectric crystals, including a wearable device that could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment. 
 
 

 

Nanotubes break superconducting record  - 14 February 2006

"Physicists in Japan have shown that "entirely end-bonded" multi-walled carbon nanotubes can superconduct at temperatures as high as 12 K, which is 30 times greater than for single-walled carbon nanotubes.  .... However, 1D conductors like carbon nanotubes -- rolled up sheets of graphite just nanometres in diameter -- are not naturally superconducting. One reason for this is the presence of so-called Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) states in the material, which cause the electrons to repulse each other and so destroy Cooper pairs. 
Now, however, Haruyama and colleagues have designed a system in which there is a superconducting phase that can compete with the TLL phase and even overcome it -- a feat hitherto believed impossible. The system consists of an array of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, each of which consists of a series of concentric nanotube shells. Electrical contacts made of metal are bonded to the tubes so they touch the top of all the shells. Conventional "bulk junction" contacts, in contrast, touch only the outermost shell of a tube and along its length.
Haruyama and co-workers grew their multiwalled nanotubes from a template of porous alumina. Next, they cut the tops off the nanotubes using ultrasound or etching techniques and then evaporated a gold electrode onto the exposed ends of the tubes. In this way, nearly all of the nanotube shells were made electrically active."
 

American Nuclear Society Meeting on Cold Fusion (11/17/05)

“Nuclear Reaction Pathways Resulting From Phonon Interactions,” Peter Hagelstein (MIT)

“Evidence for Intense Soft X-Ray Emission From a Hydride Target Undergoing Intense Deuteron Bombardment,” George Miley (Univ. of Illinois)

“Dual Ohmic Controls Improve Understanding of ‘Heat After Death,’” Mitchell Swartz, Gayle Verner (JET Energy)

“Bose-Einstein Fusion Mechanism for Low-Energy Nuclear Reaction and Transmutation Processes in Micro- and Nano-Scale High-Density Deuteron Plasmas,” Yeong Kim (Purdue Univ.)

“Coherent Zener Breakdown and Tunneling in Finite Lattices: Why Nano-Scale PdD Crystals Can Turn-On Faster,” Scott Chubb

“Three Types of DD Fusion,” Talbot Chubb (Naval Research Laboratory)

“Low Energy Nuclear Reactions,” David Nagel (George Washington Univ.)

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 D2Fusion, Inc.
 ESSAY: Cold Fusion Is Really Solid-State Fusion  Russ George

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Haiko Lietz's Site:
Bubble Fusion takes next hurdle
The world needs an Apollo-type program for cold fusion

 Blacklight Chemical Technologies

"The lower-energy atomic hydrogen product of the BlackLight Process reacts with an electron to form a hydride ion, which further reacts with elements other than hydrogen to form novel proprietary compounds called hydrino hydride compounds (HHCs). BlackLight is developing the vast class of proprietary chemical compounds formed via the BlackLight Process. Test results indicate that the properties of HHCs are rich in diversity due to their extraordinary binding energy (i.e., the energy required to remove an electron which determines the chemical reactivity and properties).  Hydrino   hydride ions have the potential to be as useful as carbon as a base “element.”  Carbon is a base element for many useful compounds ranging from diamonds, to synthetic fibers, to liquid gasoline, to pharmaceuticals.