Software 2000/Software 2000 Volume 1 (Disc 1 of 2).iso/utilities/u053.dms/u053.adf/FUSION.TXT

Text File | 1989-04-17 | 67KB | 1,522 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.chem
Subject: Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications?
Summary: New Age Brewing
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Posted: Sat Mar 25 00:01:59 1989

            FOR SALE
Large stainless steel containers. Suitable large batch beer brewing.
Apply: Atomic Energy Commssion

============================================================================
    Andrew Palfreyman                408-721-4788 work
    National Semiconductor    MS D3969        408-247-0145 home
    2900 Semiconductor Dr.
    P.O. Box 58090                    there's many a slip
    Santa Clara, CA  95052-8090            'twixt cup and lip
============================================================================


Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Test-tube fusion details
Posted: Fri Mar 24 14:41:59 1989

From:  Richard Harris <[e-mail]>

Here are some details from the University of Utah press conference
yesterday. Fleishmann said the team had attained sustained fusion
for hundreds of hours, producing heat at the rate of greater than
20 watts/cu-cm of electrode. He said the heat once melted
the palladium electrode (M.P.1554 C) He did not state how much electric
current was being applied at the time. He also held up a device that
he said could produce 800 watts of heat. He said that he had achieved
breakeven, by running one cell for a long period of time at very low
yields. The scientists said they had detected neutrons from the
reaction, and gamma rays they said were generated from neutrons
colliding with water molecules. They said they did not measure the
energy spectrum of the neutrons or the gamma rays, but when asked
whether the neutrons were 2.4 mev neutrons (as you would expect
from a D-D fusion reaction) Pons said they are at least that powerful.
Fleishmann also said that the neutrons and fusion products (He, tritium)
were nine orders of magnitude less than they would expect (from the
heat output perhaps? He didn't specify) from "conventional" fusion
reactions. Some aspect of the experiment is supposed to be published
in the Journal of Electroanalytic Chemistry in May. They said they
also planned to send a paper to Nature, but have not yet done so.

If you can interpret these "findings," I would appreciate hearing
from you. I am science correspondent for National Public Radio.
    The information in this message comes directly from the press
conference, which I have taped.
                                            Richard Harris


From: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Cold Fusion: 3/27 WSJ Update
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Posted: Mon Mar 27 13:14:09 1989

The 3/27 issue of the Wall Street Journal has an article titled
"Scientist Sticks to Claimed Test-Tube Fusion Advance".  Included:

(1) Pons told WSJ that a palladium wire 1/4 inch in diameter and
an inch long reached the boiling point of water in a few minutes,
and produced 26 watts/cc, "about 4 1/2 times what we put into it".

(2) Pons said that in an early stage of the experiments the apparatus
suddenly heated up to an estimated 5000 degrees (F, probably),
destroying a laboratory hood and burning a four-inch-deep hole in
the concrete floor (!).

(3) Pons says "there is no reason the reaction [in the
palladium] has to be the same as that seen in physicists' big high-
temperature fusion machines", and "heat may also be coming from
other reactions".  Perhaps he is suggesting H+D fusion?

(4) Pons said they had no doubt that deuterium fusion was occuring.
DD fusion produces a 2.5 MeV neutron.  He said they had detected a
specific energy of gamma ray produced when these neutrons entered
the [normal] water bath surrounding the apparatus.  (If these are
capture gamma rays from the neutrons on protons, they could be confused
with gammas from H+D.)

(5) Edward Teller is quoted as saying "This morning my opinion was that
it could never happen.  And I am extremely happy now because I see a very
good chance that I was completely wrong."

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]


From: [e-mail] (John Scott McCauley Jr.)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.research
Subject: cold fusion article from BYU group (repost)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Posted: Tue Mar 28 22:24:43 1989

[ This to some might be a repost. My normal machine phoenix is up and
down so I tried posting some details from prep.ai.mit.edu. As
it hasn't got to phoenix yet, I am reposting ]

I just received a preprint of the Jones and Palmer publication.
It is called 'Observation of Cold Nuclear Fusion in Condensed Matter',
S.E. Jones, E.P. Palmer, et al (Depts Physics and Chemistry, BYU),
J. Rafelski (Dept Physics, U. Arizona), dated March 23, 1989.

It is 16 pages long and gives a lot of details about their setup.

This is a *real* paper and not a press release -- it shows data
and probably gives enough info to be duplicated it in the lab.

(If I have time tonight or tommorow & it is ethical, I will scan it, put it in
MacPaint or GIF format, and make it available for anonymous ftp,
unless someone from Utah or Arizona already has a machine-readable
format.)

Here are some highlights:

'We have observed deuterium-deuterium fusion at room temperature during
low-voltage electrolytic infusion of deuterons into mettalic titanium
or palladium electrodes. The fusion reaction
    d + d -> helium-3(0.82 MeV) + n (2.45 MeV)
is evidently catalyzed as d+ and metal ions from the electrolyte are
deposited at (and into) the negative electrode. Neutrons having approx
2.5 MeV energy are clearly detected with a neutron spec. The
experimental layout is portrayed in Figure 1.'

Only the neutron branch was measured -- the T + p is assumed to
have the same cross-section.

Estimated reaction rate for cold fusion is about 1e-23 fusions/
deutron pair/second.

This may explain high levels of Tritium in volcanos.

They are trying other setups.

The paper is *very* cautious about applications of this for power
generation. Last sentence in paper:
'... while the fusion reaction rates observed so far are small, the
discovery of cold nuclear fusion in condensed matter opens the
possibility of at least of a new path to fusion energy.'


Here are some of my own personal observations+guesses.

Cold fusion can happen. The reaction rate of Jones & Palmer
is too small right now to be of use. It is far lower
than the tokamak was  two decades ago. However, the technology is
not exotic. In 20yrs or less we know whether or not this
technology will work. This is about the same time as tokamaks,
if not shorter.

The Fleschman and Pons experiment seems to be producing the same
effects. However, there is an interesting question left for dreamers.
The Jones & Palmer group base their reaction rate on neutron count.
However, if the Helium-3 + neutron branch is being suppressed
by spin alignment, say, then the Jones and Palmer group will have
underestimated the fusion reaction rate! To find the total reaction
rate, one must also measure the fusion reaction rate of the Helium-4 + gamma
branch. [supposedly the F&P experiment observed equal numbers of
Tritium and neutrons, i.e. the T + p and He-3 + n have equal cross-section].
One could use calorimeters or measure gammas to find the total reaction rate.
It is just possible that the Fleschman and Pons group did that and
saw a huge discepency between the reaction rates.

It is also possible that Fleschman and Pons are producing an
electrochemical effect (read battery) and this is upsetting the calorimeter
measurements.

    Wait till the papers come out,

            Scott

P.S. Be careful you have adequate amounts of neutron shielding if
     you try this. As was said before, safe doses of neutrons are
     on the order of nanowatts for 2.5 MeV energies.


From: [e-mail] (Donn Seeley)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: tidbits from the Salt Lake Tribune coverage of the fusion story
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Posted: Wed Mar 29 04:06:44 1989

I've naturally been curious about this story as it has developed; one
of the aspects that puzzled me was the timing of the announcement.
One reason for the timing is that there apparently were some leaks
prior to last week.  The 3/25 edition of the Tribune quotes Pamela
Fogle, director of news services for the University of Utah:

    'We thought long and hard about the news conference,' she
    said.  The story was starting to leak out of the university and
    many of the leaks had inaccuracies, she said, so U. officials
    decided it couldn't wait.

At the same time I have to wonder about the reported competing research
at Brigham Young University, and whether Pons and Fleischmann wanted to
claim credit first.  Another story in the same edition states:

    Brigham Young University officials confirmed Friday that BYU
    physicist Steven Jones had also submitted a manuscript on 'cold
    fusion' research to Nature.  Unlike the U. researchers, Dr
    Jones has declined to discuss details until it has been
    published.

    BYU spokesman Paul Richards said he understood both manuscripts
    were submitted with the hope they would appear side by side in
    Nature...

    Mr Richards stressed that BYU's research has been carried out
    independently of the U. project, and Dr Jones has been working
    on cold fusion for several years.  ...

    Dr Jones is also scheduled to present his paper in May at an
    American Chemical Society meeting in Baltimore.

    Most of his fusion work has used [muons] to catalyze the fusion
    reaction, but an abstract on the Baltimore talk indicates he
    will also speak on research very similar to the U. experiment,
    in which fusionable material was imbedded in palladium metal.

    'We have also accumulated considerable evidence for a new form
    of cold nuclear fusion which occurs when hydrogen isotopes are
    loaded into crystalline solids without muons,' the abstract
    said.

    Mr Richards said he does not believe BYU has applied for any
    patents on their research, as the U. has, 'but I know we're
    planning to.'

    He couldn't say if those plans would be affected by the U.'s
    application.  'We don't know because we haven't seen what they
    are doing.'

    'If they have some kind of a comprehensive patent, that could
    cause some problems for us,' he added.  'We have documented
    notes going back to '85 and '86, and we hope that would have
    some bearing.'

The patent issue is interesting too.  Here are some details on the
University of Utah's patent process from another article:

    James Brophy, U. vice president for research, told regents the
    patent rights for the research belong to the university.

    If the patent holds up, Dr Brophy said the two researchers will
    get a third of any royalties, the U. chemistry department will
    get a third because that's the academic department Dr Pons is
    affiliated with [he's the chair -- DMS], and the remaining
    third will go to the university itself.

The Tuesday (3/28) edition contains some more tantalizing hints that
others have successfully duplicated Dr Pons's experimental results:

    Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratories may have
    already confirmed the results of the University of Utah's
    nuclear-fusion studies, according to the U. professor who made
    the studies.

    Stanley Pons said he heard Monday that the New Mexico
    laboratory had repeated his experiments with success.  'I'm
    very positive about that possibility,' he said, adding that he
    was still encouraging other scientists to wait until his paper
    is published in May.

    Los Alamos officials would not confirm the report Monday
    afternoon.  'Nothing yet,' said Jeff Schwartz, public affairs
    officer.  ...

    Dr Pons couldn't say whether Los Alamos scientists had directly
    measured neutrons, but he suspected they had.

Here we have to trust Dr Pons for the veracity of the report.  If
true, then both BYU and LANL may have duplicated the experiment, but
frustratingly, neither BYU nor LANL have yet said as much to the press.

The same interview gives some more clues about the process:

    One problem in scaling up [to larger reactors] would be getting
    the fusionable material into the metal rods, he said.  'It
    takes a long time to charge the big rods up,' he said,
    estimating that a one-inch diameter rod could take up to a year
    and a half.  That might be reduced by casting the rods in a
    deuterium environment, he added.  ...

    He said a neutron emitted in the fusion process undergoes a
    secondary reaction which emits a gamma ray, which they have
    measured.  'The gamma ray is of the predicted energy.'

    While the experiment has been portrayed in such elegantly
    simple terms, Dr Pons said there is really far more going on
    that they haven't researched fully.  Those complications
    include the role of lithium in the fusion reaction.  Lithium is
    added to the heavy water solution to help electricity flow in
    the electrode.

    'We have maintained that the deuterium-deuterium reaction is
    not the main heat producer...  There are other components in
    the system...  Lithium is a fine candidate right now as far as
    I'm concerned.'

It's amusing that Dr Pons is so devoted to the University of Utah in
spite of the state's shaky commitment to higher education.  He lives
here for much the same reasons that I live here:

    ...  The North Carolina native said he came to the university
    five years ago because 'it's just one of the best departments
    in the country.'

    A skier and hiker, Dr Pons said he is 'very happy' in Salt
    Lake City.  'I love the mountains and I love the life here.
    I'm very impressed with the whole city.'

A political flap has arisen as a result of the fusion announcement.
Legislators are battling over whether to increase university funding to
support further fusion research.  The governor has proposed a $5
million grant, but predictably there has been conservative opposition
-- the contrary view is that work with commercial potential should be
done by commercial enterprises, not by the state.  Tuesday's political
cartoon by Bagley shows Joe Utah in his easy chair holding the sports
page in front of him, with the TV in the foreground babbling about the
fusion story; he comments to his wife: 'Just a couple more of those
deadbeat U of U professors who probably think they're too good to teach
a couple of classes...'

Stanley Pons was trying to teach a class yesterday, but the camera
crews were proving to be an inconvenience,

Donn Seeley    University of Utah CS Dept    [e-mail]
40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W    [phone]    utah-cs!donn


Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cold Fusion
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Posted: Wed Mar 29 08:18:15 1989

Some more comments on fusion...

(1) The number of 1e-23/sec/dd pair is interesting.  That means (no surprise)
that tunneling is occuring with a very large separation.  In muonic fusion,
the tunneling occurs more than thirty orders of magnitude faster.

Now, in my meager understanding of nuclear physics, the rate of a
nuclear reaction involving tunneling through a barrier has a
multiplicative term of the form exp{-G}, G the "Gamow factor".  G is
proportional to sqrt(m), m the mass of the tunneling particle.  So,
you'd expect this term to be exp{.3 G} larger for a proton instead of
a deuteron.  Since G is already very large, protons could conceivably
tunnel much faster than deuterons.

G is also proportional to the product of the charges of the nuclei, so
I'd expect p+d->He3+gamma to be a lot faster than reactions involving
lithium.

(2) Problems with the time needed to charge the palladium with
deuterium can be solved by plating thin layers of palladium onto
another metal.  You'd want a metal that is impermeable to hydrogen (is
copper?), or at least a barrier layer that is impermeable (gold?).

Thin layers have other advantages.  One could run more current through
a given mass of palladium without increasing ohmic losses, since the
current flows mostly into the supporting metal.  Also, a thin layer can
have power density inversely proportional to its thickness, since it
has lower thermal resistance.  This would only be important if the
fusion power is limited by the rate at which heat can be removed
rather than by the fusion rate itself.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]


From: [e-mail] (Ted Dunning)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: cold fusion seminar
Organization: New Mexico State U, LC NM
Posted: Thu Mar 30 17:20:33 1989

(kinda long)
I will be attending Dr. Pons' seminar in slc on friday, trying to
get as much information as possible (consistent with the experimenter's
confidentiality requirements vis a vis patent rights).  Today I will
be trying to gather as much background as possible from people trying
to replicate the experiments here in the local area as well as on the net.

If you have specific questions you need answered, or if you have (even
preliminary) results from replications attempts, please send me email
at [e-mail].   I (and probably others) will be posting a summary
on this group after the seminar.

The current points that I will be looking for will be:

a) where are the neutrons.  D-D fusion should produce prodigous quantities
of neutrons, but the rumors are that the experiments have not so far
produced the predicted quantities.

b) was there sufficient control on the tritium and helium detections.

c) does the system support deuterium breeding?  can tritiated water be
used in addition to deuterated water?

d) were the measurements of power input done carefully enough to avoid
confounding?

e) does the reported delay in onset of fusion (10 hours according to one
report) imply that control of the reaction will be difficult? will different
geometries of palladium influence this delay time?  will they also prevent
the reaction?  could this be the problem with replication?

f) are there limitations on scalability other than boiling water and melting
electrodes?

g) if the fusion happening is D-D -> T+p rather than -> He + n, does this
have applications with respect to direct generation of electricity?



(here's hoping it's for real!!)

[e-mail]

btw -- can anyone suggest a CHEAP place to stay in slc?


From: [e-mail] (Ken Burgess)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: fusion power magnitude
Organization: HP Ft. Collins, Co.
Posted: Wed Mar 29 02:48:57 1989


Consider the fuel cost for a 4GW power plant:
((4000 mega watt / 1 mega ev)*(20 gram/mole)) / (200 gram/liter) = 3.94 gal/hr
at $250 / liter ...
(3.94 gal/hour * 250 $/liter) / 4000 mega watt = 0.1 cent/kwh

How about auto fuel economy:
Assume it takes 20 hp to go 60 mph
60 mph / (((20 hp / 1 mega ev) * 20 gram/mole) / (200 gram/liter)) =
4,081,657 miles/gal    *** your mileage may vary ***

Even at 10% efficiency thats 400,000 miles on $1000 of fuel, or
(250 $/liter) / (408165 miles/gal) = 0.0023 $/mile
about 0.2 cent/mile vs 3.0 cents/mile for gasoline for an efficient car!

Clearly the cost of this energy will be based primarily on capitalization.

Ken
[e-mail]


From: [e-mail] (Robert J Woodhead)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: fusion power magnitude
Organization: Biar Games, Inc.
Posted: Fri Mar 31 00:19:03 1989

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Logajan) writes:
>Cars could be built with a permanent fuel supply -- given that the rest
>of the thing could be scaled to fit.

They wouldn't need _any_ fuel supply, per se.  Rather, some of the energy
would be diverted to 1) condensing water from the air and 2) seperating
D20 from regular H20.  An absurd notion, to be sure.

Of course, you might want to pack an emergency liter of D20 if you were
going to spend a couple of months in a desert or something.... ;^)

--
* Robert J Woodhead * The true meaning of life is cunningly encrypted and *
* uunet!biar!trebor * hidden somewhere in this signature...               *
* Biar Games, Inc.  *                       ...no, go back and look again *


Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: deuterated palladium: supercondcutor!
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Posted: Wed Mar 29 09:07:23 1989

It may interest some to know that the system Pd D (1-x) has been
studied as a superconductor with Tc about 8-9 K at best. Pd is a
5d band metal, and upon adding deuterium, remains a metal but
has its density of states at the fermi energy reduced drastically.
Pd has one of the highest M*'s of any element (meaning large
susceptibility, electronic heat capacity, and screening [at low q:
long length scales, not so useful for you cold fusion fans.]
m* is almost 10)
At around 50-80 K or so the deuterated system undergoes a structural
phase transition, separating into two phases, one slightly richer
in D and one slghtly poorer in D. D even manages to order into square
planes. One should conclude that the energy for two D's to occupy
the SAME interstitial in the Pd FCC lattice is much larger.
Superconducting properties of Pd-D seem to be well described by
strong-coupling BCS phonon mechanism. Would have been nice
(square planes, d8 orbitals...) if it were a cousin of high Tc!


From: [e-mail] (andrew)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: deuterated palladium: superconductor!
Summary: no problem with cool superconductors! + adsorption density guess
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Posted: Wed Mar 29 15:39:27 1989

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Theodore Cheng-tao Hsu) writes:
> Would have been nice [superconducting Pd - D]
> (square planes, d8 orbitals...) if it were a cousin of high Tc!

Don't worry, Theodore - with all this cheap energy, you can afford that
refrigerator now!

Related to D-adsorption, it's possible to calculate the packing density of
the D atoms in the lattice, given the figures "released" in the last few
hours (1E-23 fusions/D-pair/sec and 25 watts/cc, with 2.5 MeV n's).
The fusion rate predicts 4E-36 watts/D-pair, and the power output then
predicts 6E36 D-pairs/cc.
If Pd is 20gm/cc dense, (and has 106.4 At W), this gives 5E21 Pd atoms/cc.
There is thus a 1E15:1 population (compression) ratio here! - did I screw up?
====
Andrew Palfreyman         USENET: ...{this biomass}!nsc!logic!andrew
National Semiconductor M/S D3969, 2900 Semiconductor Dr., PO Box 58090,
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8090 ; 408-721-4788         there's many a slip
                            'twixt cup and lip


From: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Cold Fusion -- a Chain Reaction?
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Posted: Wed Mar 29 17:57:56 1989

Thinking a bit more about cold fusion, I was perplexed by something.
There clearly has to be tunneling going on.  That means something
has to force the nuclei close to one another so the tunneling rate
is nontrivial.  This likely takes energy.  Where does the energy
come from?

It occured to me that it might come from other fusion reactions.  When
a fusion reaction occurs, it spits out one or more energetic nuclei.
These nuclei scatter off other light nuclei, which are displaced to
new locations in the Pd lattice -- perhaps to locations of higher
energy, where they are close to other nuclei with which they may now
fuse.

One may ask how the chain reaction gets started.  One possibility is
alpha particle emitters that are no doubt present as trace
contaminants in the Pd.

This model offers a new explanation for the long induction time needed
for fusion to start -- the Pd rod must "go critical".  It also suggests
that the Pd layer cannot be made much thinner than the mean free path
of a fusion product and still sustain fusion.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]


From: [e-mail] (Jr. John S Mccauley)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.research
Subject: Jones et. al. Preprint now avail by ftp
Keywords: cold fusion paper in PICT format for Macs
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Posted: Thu Mar 30 02:36:41 1989

I finally was able to digitize the preprint I have from Jones and Palmer.
It is called 'Observation of Cold Nuclear Fusion in Condensed Matter',
S.E. Jones, E.P. Palmer, et al (Depts Physics and Chemistry, BYU),
J. Rafelski (Dept Physics, U. Arizona), dated March 23, 1989.

It is in PICT format for the Mac with 100dpi (low quality fax) resolution.
I could not figure out how to create GIF files and the MacPaint format
didn't work to well.  I gave up on trying to keep it in a general format
so it is pretty mac-specific: the paper is in a bin-hexed, Stuffit archive.

YOU MUST HAVE A PROGRAM CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING PICT FORMAT!
These include MacDraw II, MacDraft, and Superpaint.

I have put in on-line for anonymous ftp on two machines:
    prep.ai.mit.edu (128.52.32.14) in directory ~ftp/pub/fusion
    princeton.edu (128.112.0.1) in directory ~ftp/pub/fusion

The bin-hexed, stuffit archive (jp.sit.hqx) is about 450K long and consists
of 16 pages. (I am missing the last two graphs.) You probably need to
manipulate it on a mac for about 1 hr or so before you can print everything
out. The README file follows.

    Have fun!

        Scott

P.S. My thanks to Jim Liu and Marty Ryba for helping with this project.
P.P.S. I will try to email copies upon request. If things get too crowded
I may not be able to.  MAKE SURE YOU CAN READ PICT IMAGES FIRST!


--------
README FILE
--------

The following files are in this directory:

README -- this file
jp.sit.hqx -- Binhexed stuffit archive of paper (ascii)
              Contains 16 PICT image files of preprint.
          Ultrix sum command output on this file is 17353 433
jp.sit.hqx.Z -- compressed version of the above. Make sure you turn
          binary mode on with this file.
stuffit.hqx -- bin-hexed version 1.51 of Stuff-it from him1.cc.umich.edu
stuffit.note -- some notes on stuff-it.

You need:

Binhex 4.0 or higher
Stuffit (shareware: a bin-hexed copy is on-line)
Something that can deal with PICT files. Programs I know of that work include

    a) MacDraw II (MacDraw I doesn't seem to work)
    b) MacDraft
    c) SuperPaint

Many other graphics programs/conversion utilities probably exist.

The pictures are stored in PICT format with a resolution of about 100 dpi
(low quality fax?). There is one picture per page. Each PICT file ranges
in size from about 13-32K.

Steps:

1) Make sure you have the required programs.
2) Run BinHex on jp.sit.hqx to produce j&p.sit. It should be 323,202 bytes
   long.
3) Run Stuff-it to extract the 16 PICT format pictures.
4) Open the files with MacDraw II/MacDraft/Superpaint/etc. You may want
   to reduce the image size using printer-setup to be 80%.
5) It takes about 2 min or so to print out the files each on a laser-writer:
   they are bitmaps.


From: [e-mail] (John Logajan)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Solid state fusion
Organization: Network Systems Corp. Mpls MN
Posted: Wed Mar 29 18:39:08 1989

If, as has been speculated, the electolysis of the heavy water is merely a
transport mechanism for getting deutrium into the palladium block -- couldn't
the whole process also be achieved by placing the palladium block in a
pressurized container of deutrium gas -- and forgo the electrical equipment
all together?

Or for that matter, the pressure container could simply be made out of
palladium.  In either case one would have to modulate the fusion reaction
rate by modulating the deutrium gas pressure -- taking into account the
reaction response latency.

Any thoughts on such a system?

--
- John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428  -
- ...rutgers!umn-cs!ns!logajan / [e-mail] / [e-mail] -


From: [e-mail] (Michael McClary)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Solid state fusion
Organization: Xanadu Operating Company, Palo Alto, CA
Posted: Fri Mar 31 00:26:09 1989

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John Logajan) writes:
>If, as has been speculated, the electolysis of the heavy water is merely a
>transport mechanism for getting deutrium into the palladium block -- couldn't
>the whole process also be achieved by placing the palladium block in a
>pressurized container of deutrium gas -- and forgo the electrical equipment
>all together? [...]

Electrolysis has the advantage of actively pumping the deuterium into
the palladium.  Think of it as a little electric (electrostatic) motor
on each deuterium atom.  I suspect doing this indirectly (by pumping the
gas mechanically) would be less efficient.

On the other hand, electrolysis requires the electrode to be under the
boiling point of (perhaps pressurized) heavy water.  Even if the above
suspicion is correct, a hotter hot-end means a more efficient heat engine,
and this could pay for a lot of pumping.


From: [e-mail] (Philip Stephens)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: gas vs liquid, Re: Solid state fusion
Sender: [e-mail]
Posted: Fri Mar 31 03:13:21 1989

From article <f6H1K#=[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (Michael McClary):
> On the other hand, electrolysis requires the electrode to be under the
> boiling point of (perhaps pressurized) heavy water.  Even if the above
> suspicion is correct, a hotter hot-end means a more efficient heat engine,
> and this could pay for a lot of pumping.

For reference, boiling points for (regular) water at various pressures,
in atmospheres (I assume D2O is fairly similar):

atm    C    F    delta (relative to hypothetical 100 F condensor)
  1    100    212    112
  2    120    248    148
  5    152    305    105
 10    180    356    156
 20    213    415    315
 40    251    483    383
 80    296    564    464
160    348    658    558
218    374    705    605

(that's the limit of table in my reference; how much pressure is
likely to be worth bothering with?  I'm not up on high-pressure
containment etc. myself).

Sounds like a lot of pressure, but may be worth it for 2, 4, or 6
times the 1 atm delta.  (Or more, I suppose.  1000 atm???).

'Take what you can use, leave the rest'.    ---Phil        (prs@oliven)


From: [e-mail] (Jim VanWinkle)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cold Fusion
Organization: Oregon State University - CS - Corvallis Oregon
Posted: Thu Mar 30 17:52:24 1989

There may be some problems for those of you who have been
seeing htis cold fusion breakthrough as a means of generating
electricity and putting all of the utilities out of business.
Well...

1)  Palladium is a great Hydrogen getter at room temperature, but
the solubility of hydrogen in the lattice drops drastically at
temperature.  This will force you to run the experiment at around 20-30
C.

2)  The first reports gave the power output at 3 watts in 10 hours.
Even though this is net power (a gain), it is thermal energy.  To
get electricity, you'll have to construct a heat engine, and the
efficiency of a heta engine with the hot resovior at 30 C is
dismal.

3)  Palladium has a nasty habit of neutron activation.  This means you
get very "hot" reactor components, and this is real bad.  Titanium
may work like palladium, and it doesn't have that problem.

The process is not completely useless, ovbviously.  It just seems
that it wont be used in power generation.  It still makes a nifty
neutron source for radiography, etc.

Jim "Master of Neutrons" VanWinkle
OSU Department of Nuclear Engineering
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV

gge.(t


From: [e-mail] (Dan Williams)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.physics,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Cold Fusion
Summary: Reliable news
Keywords: NASA head James Fletcher, fusionRe: Cold Fusion
Organization: MDCCIS, Englewood, CO
Posted: Thu Mar 30 18:23:18 1989


    Just saw an Associated Press story claiming that James Fletcher
will be returning to the University of Utah to Head the states efforts to
cash in on the cold fusion breakthrough.  How about that for a cold fusion
space Tie in?
    The Governor of Utah is trying to break loose $5 million for this
program.  Sounds a little light to me but they sure are acting fast.
    Also it looks like someone at the March 23 news conference stole
all the diagrams illustrating the process.  Look for news organizations
with exclusive diagrams.

 _______________________________________________________
|   Fusion is a reality.  Just ask the Governor of Utah |
|   Dan Williams          uunet!salt!dan        |
|   MCDONNELL DOUGLAS      Denver CO            |
|   Any opinions expressed by me are not the         |
|   opinions of McDonnell Douglas.            |


From: [e-mail] (andrew)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cold Fusion - problems
Summary: titanium
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Posted: Thu Mar 30 21:11:02 1989

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jim VanWinkle) writes:
> There may be some problems for those of you who have been
> seeing htis cold fusion breakthrough as a means of generating
> electricity and putting all of the utilities out of business.
> Well...
>     [...]
> 3)  Palladium has a nasty habit of neutron activation.  This means you
> get very "hot" reactor components, and this is real bad.  Titanium
> may work like palladium, and it doesn't have that problem.

Thanks for the well-written and highly informative posting, Jim.

You beg the question about titanium - how does its adsorption change with
temperature?

Assuming the temperature limitations you cite are not correctible by
higher pressure deuterium gas, casting the Pd with deuterium, or other
wily tricks I've read here, perhaps it would still be possible to get a
heat engine to work, using a refrigerated sink. Perhaps this could be
created by a bootstrap, whereby continuous refrigeration was powered by
the heat engine itself? - I don't think I'm violating thermodynamical Law
here.

Someone else asked if Ti is traded as a commodity - no, it's not. I'd like
to know its price/oz though - Pd went up again today, and a new (extended)
daily price increase limit was implemented. Maybe the auto industry is
getting worried that its catalytic conversion switchover plans from Pt
to Pd may be stymied by
1) demand exceeding supply this year by 300Ktons (10% of total supply)
2) worldwide R&D grabbing what little is left.
That would make for an interesting market.

Lastly: I read (I think in the original Pons data maybe) that nickel
(also a platinum group metal) had been tried. Now that IS cheap!
Any data, anybody?
=====
Andrew Palfreyman         USENET: ...{this biomass}!nsc!logic!andrew
National Semiconductor M/S D3969, 2900 Semiconductor Dr., PO Box 58090,
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8090 ; 408-721-4788         there's many a slip
                            'twixt cup and lip


From: [e-mail] (Jon Webb)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Fusion in Titanium
Summary: Hydrogen in metals; sell your palladium futures
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Posted: Thu Mar 30 17:54:44 1989

Hydrogen is absorbed by many metals.  According to "Hydrogen in
Metals" by Donald Smith, there are several metals that absorb more
hydrogen than palladium: for example, cerium, thorium, titanium,
vanadium, uranium, praseodymium, and neodymium.  (I don't know why
palladium is used for hydrogen purification rather than, say,
titanium; maybe palladium absorbs hydrogen more rapidly, while the
total capacity of titanium is higher.)  In particular, the capacity of
palladium to absorb hydrogen falls off pretty rapidly with
temperature, and not so rapidly for some of the other metals -- which
might be important if the fusion reaction is to be driven at a higher
temperature for greater thermal efficiency, possibly using
electrolysis of some deuterium compound other than heavy water
(because of lower vapor pressure so you could still do fusion at room
air pressure).

If you bought palladium futures, now might be a good time to sell
them.  If you missed buying them Monday, you might consider selling
short now.  Given the number of different metals that absorb hydrogen,
it's unlikely that any particular expensive metal will turn out to be
a limiting factor in hydrogen fusion.

All this is assuming, of course, that it's the absorption of hydrogen
by palladium that is the important factor in cold fusion and not some
other factor (this is strongly implied by the Jones et al. paper).

Here's some wild speculation: the reason why the palladium rod melted
is that as its temperature increased, its absorption of deuterium
decreased, leading to an increased pressure on the deuterium to react,
leading to more heat, etc.  A runaway fusion reaction!  (Sort of).

-- J
--


From: [e-mail] (Vincent Cate)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Titanium
Keywords: titanium cold fusion
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Posted: Thu Mar 30 18:04:01 1989



TITLE     titanium
ARTICLE   {ty-tay'-nee-uhm} Titanium is a silvery gray metal resembling
          polished steel. A transition element, its symbol is Ti, its atomic
          number 22, and its atomic weight 47.90. Titanium was first
          discovered as its oxygen compound in 1791 by William Gregor and
          named in 1795 by Martin H. Klaproth after the Titans, the giants of
          Greek mythology. Nevertheless, the pure metal was not obtained until
          1910 and remained a laboratory curiosity until an economical
          purification process was discovered in 1946.
          Bibliography: Abkowitz, Stanley, et al., Titanium in Industry
          (1955); Barksdale, Jelks, Titanium, 2d ed. (1966); Clark, Robin, et
          al., The Chemistry of Titanium, Zirconium and Hafnium (1975).


TITLE     titanium  --Occurrence.
ARTICLE   Titanium is the ninth most abundant element, comprising about 0.63%
          of the Earth's crust. Analyses of rock samples from the Moon
          indicate titanium is far more abundant there; some rocks consisted
          of 12% titanium by weight. The most important titanium minerals are
          anatase, brookite, and rutile, all forms of titanium dioxide.


TITLE     titanium  --Uses.
ARTICLE   Because titanium is as strong as steel and 45% lighter, it is
          especially suitable for use in aviation and astronautics. About 50%
          of titanium production is used for jet engine components (rotors,
          fins, and compressor parts). Titanium alloys readily with other
          metals such as aluminum and tin. The alloy composition Ti + 2.5% tin
          + 5% aluminum is used when high strength at high temperatures is
          required; and the alloy Ti + 8% aluminum + molybdenum + vanadium is
          used in applications at low temperatures. Each supersonic transport
          (SST) contains about 270,000 kg (600,000 lb) of titanium.


TITLE     titanium  --Compounds.
ARTICLE   Not many titanium compounds are used commercially. Titanium
          tetrachloride is a colorless liquid that fumes in moist air; it is
          used in the manufacture of artificial pearls and iridescent glass
          and, by the military, to create smokescreens. The most important
          titanium oxide is titanium dioxide, which is a white substance with
          a high reflective power. It is used extensively in both house paint
          and artist's paint, replacing the poisonous lead white. Titanium
          dioxide is processed at very high temperatures into artificial
          rutile, which is used as a semiprecious stone (titania). Titania has
          a light yellow color and a higher index of refraction than diamond
          but is rather soft.   STEPHEN FLEISHMAN

--


From: [e-mail] (andrew)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: more help on how to access Jones and Palmer paper
Summary: I'll drink to that!
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Posted: Thu Mar 30 18:53:47 1989

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (John Scott McCauley Jr.) writes:
> Some people have had trouble getting the paper by anonymous ftp.....
> If anyone one the net feels like retyping the 15 pages of text and
> posting it to the net in ascii form, please do so! I am too busy this
> week to do this, but a lot of people would like this.

I for one would like this VERY MUCH. We can't do anon ftp here - no ARPAnet.
A good ale for the typist - my offer (if you are local) !

Andrew Palfreyman         USENET: ...{this biomass}!nsc!logic!andrew
National Semiconductor M/S D3969, 2900 Semiconductor Dr., PO Box 58090,
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8090 ; 408-721-4788         there's many a slip
                            'twixt cup and lip


From: [e-mail] (James A. Woods)
Newsgroups: sci.research
Subject: A Nobel prize instanter, but which field?
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, California
Posted: Thu Mar 30 20:01:42 1989

# [talking about building a seven-day disappearer ....]  "Yes, said
  Willy McGilly.  Who would've thought you could do it with a beer can
  and two pieces of cardboard?  When I was a boy, I used an oatmeal
  box and a red crayola."
                -- Raphael Aloysius Lafferty, from
                 "Seven-Day Terror", in '900 Grandmothers'

concerning fusion-in-a-box, what we all want to know now is where
the nobel claim will be staked -- physics, chemistry, or both?
might as well throw in economics while we're at it, if the
20 watts/cm**3 figure bandied about holds true ...


From: [e-mail] (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Fusion in a palladium cavitation
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Posted: Tue Mar 28 19:33:23 1989


    Some question whether this is "water remembering" or whether it is
"ceramic superconductors."  Both were equally outlandish.  However, you can
postulate a few known laws, such as tunneling, to come up with some support
to back up the claim. As for experimental work, one does have to explain:
    1. More energy out than energy in.
`    2. More energy out than is usually given by electrolysis
    3. The tritium that is detected.
    4. The gamma rays.

    On the other hand, in one of the news accounts they did mention
that it ran at 4-8 volts imput, and at 100 volts input, the Palladium
melted.  So fine, we can't make fusion reactors, but we can make fusion
batteries.  The next great consumer fad: a Nuclear Sony Walkman.
--
            Craig Werner   (future MD/PhD, 4 years down, 3 to go)
         [e-mail] -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine
              (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517)
"The DNA genetic system is the one library in which it is worthwhile to browse"


From: [e-mail] (William Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.environment
Subject: Tritium in the environment (was: Re: Success with cold fusion reported)
Summary: Straightening out some health-physics issues
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Posted: Thu Mar 30 22:44:29 1989

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) writes:
> An example of a real problem with cold fusion (as reported in the press,
> I make no claims for its reality) would be its tendency to irradiate
> its container vessel with neutrons (producing some quantity of
> low level radioactive waste) and release tritium (a nasty isotope
> of hydrogen with a tendency to get absorbed into body tissues and
> a half life short enough to give a healthy dose of radiation per unit
> time). [...]

There's more than enough net-noise making the rounds about the cold fusion
"result", and I don't want to add to it, but do permit me a small correction
here, Ethan.  Tritium is actually relatively tame stuff from a radiological
point of view for two reasons.  First, it is an extremely "soft" beta emitter
that emits no gamma radiation whatever (apart from incredibly low-energy
bremsstrahlung); consequently it is utterly harmless unless ingested or
inhaled.  This stands in marked contrast to, for example, fission products,
which typically emit high-energy gamma radiation that is relatively penetrating
and thus hard to shield.  Second, its *biological* half life (that is, the time
it takes for the body to excrete half of the tritium ingested or inhaled) is
vastly shorter than the radioactive half life (the time required for half of it
to decay away).  The difference is about a factor of 10,000 -- biological half
life of about 12 hours (which can be shortened by drinking quantities of
fluids; tritium accidents have been known to occasion some major beer blasts,
and no smileys are implied here!) versus radioactive half life of 12 years.
Consequently, ingestion of, say, a millicurie of tritium is a vastly less
threatening experience that ingestion (and absorption) of a millicurie of
something like iodine 131, which is going to stay in the system for a while.

The reason why tritium is considered a hazard is simply that it is produced,
and used, in extraordinary quantity.  Typical nuclear-physics experiments with
"normal" radioisotopes might involve a millicurie of material.  By contrast,
I well remember an experiment during my graduate-student days, about 100 feet
from where I was working, that used about 60 KILOcuries of tritium!  Even
though I'm normally pretty sanguine about working near radioactive material,
I made sure I knew where the nearest emergency exit was when that stuff was
around.

(Followups, if any, should probably go to either sci.environment or sci.misc,
but not both; I've already trimmed down the list of groups considerably from
Ethan's posting.)

--
"One thing they don't tell you about doing    | Bill Johnson
experimental physics is that sometimes you    | Los Alamos Nat'l Laboratory
must work under adverse conditions ... like    | {!cmcl2!lanl!mwj}
a state of sheer terror." (W. K. Hartmann)    | ([e-mail])


From: [e-mail] (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.environment
Subject: Re: Tritium in the environment (was: Re: Success with cold fusion reported)
Summary: a thanks and an additional comment
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Posted: Fri Mar 31 09:31:21 1989

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (William Johnson) writes:
- some deleted stuff about the exact level of danger from tritium.

Thanks for the information.

One other comment about tritium that may (or may not) be of interest.  It
is considerably easier to make a thermonuclear weapon from a fission bomb
if you have a plentiful source of tritium.  Since this process (if real)
appears to be a rather poor neutron source that may be its chief impact
on the arms race.
--
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-emx,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) [e-mail]
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) [e-mail]

These must be my opinions.  Who else would bother?


From: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Room Temperature Fusion - possible indication?
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Posted: Fri Mar 24 08:48:57 1989

(In the following, preface all references to the discovery with
modifiers like "reported", "claimed", etc. and statements by
"assuming it is not a hoax...".)

I believe the discovery might be what is known as "pycnonuclear
fusion", meaning fusion induced by high densities rather than high
temperatures.

Even in thermonuclear fusion, the fuel nuclei do not have enough
energy to actually touch, in a classical sense.  Rather, they can come
close enough so that they can tunnel together in the very short time
before they scatter.  In pycnonuclear fusion, the atoms are compressed
statically.  They therefore have a much longer time in which to
tunnel.  However, because the tunneling rate goes down exponentially
with distance, they still must be quite close.  The nuclei need not be
moving -- pycnonuclear fusion can proceed even at absolute zero.

I wonder if the reaction proceeds by one deuteron tunneling into the
other, forming a compound nucleus that splits, or by the tunneling of
a single nucleon from one nucleus to the other.

One of the researchers said on Macneil-Lehrer that the densities achieved
are the same as gaseous D2 compressed to 10^27 atmospheres (!).  I would
like to know how this was computed.

Nowhere on the news was it reported how fast the reaction actually
goes, although it was implied that the energy released exceeded the
energy supplied.

It might be possible to use slightly enriched water to suppress D+D
reactions in favor of H+D-->He3+gamma reactions.  This would be
largely aneutronic.

I imagine there might be problems in operating a reactor at high
temperatures -- the water would boil, and deuterium would diffuse
rapidly out of the electrode.  Perhaps one could use high pressure to
raise the boiling point, or inject deuterons with a low energy ion
beam.  Also, one could achieve high thermodynamic efficiencies by
stopping the neutrons and gamma rays in a separate, insulated high
temperature collector.

Nuclear proliferation may have just become a lot easier.  I am
moderately surprised that it wasn't classified.  Maybe it will be
now? :-)

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]


From: [e-mail] (Mike Van Pelt)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Room Temperature Fusion - possible indication?
Organization: Video7, Cupertino, CA
Posted: Fri Mar 24 14:18:17 1989

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Dietz) writes:
>Nuclear proliferation may have just become a lot easier.  I am
>moderately surprised that it wasn't classified.  Maybe it will be
>now? :-)

Maybe that's why they announced their discovery in such a (for
a scientific discovery) funny way.  With a short-notice press
conference and media coverage, the secret is out.  The newspaper
article I looked at seemed to imply that some of the skepticism
of the scientific community was based on the unorthodox method
of the announcement.  (Plus the sheer effrontery of a couple of
_chemists_ claiming to fuse hydrogen in an electrolytic cell!)
--
The powers not  delegated to the United States by the | Mike Van Pelt
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are | Video 7
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.| ..ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp
U. S. Constitution, Ammendment 10.  (Bill of Rights)  |


From: [e-mail] (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Room Temperature Fusion - possible indication?
Organization: The Internet
Posted: Fri Mar 24 21:07:19 1989

Chapman remarked that "the repulsive forces from the
positive charges on the two nuclei normally require temperatures
of 50 - 100 Million degrees to overcome...".

Here is a thoery of what is happening -- IF it is happening.  Thermal
fusion requires a very high temperature because at lower speeds each
proton will scatter the other before colliding, if they are slightly
misaligned. As I recall, the cross section in normal matter is about
10**-10 (because a nuclear diameter is about 10**-5 of an atomic
diameter).  However, if the protons are perfectly aligned, the fusion
temperature is quite modest -- I think of the order of kilovolts.  But
normally, there is no way to align them well enough at low energy
because of the uncertainty principle.  It could be that if the protons
(that is, deuterons) were suitably bound in a larger solid-state
matrix (e.g., a crystal, as in the Mossbauer effect) then the
alignment could be better because of a higher effective mass.

But I can't figure out how to get the required kilovolts into that
solution with electrodes.  Maybe they simply use a very fast, high
voltage pulse?  Why is the palladium heated?  Perhaps somehow to
reduce the capacitance at the interface to permit a large enough
electric field.


From: [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Room Temperature Fusion - possible indication?
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Posted: Fri Mar 24 23:55:21 1989

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>Here is a thoery of what is happening -- IF it is happening.  Thermal
>fusion requires a very high temperature because at lower speeds each
>proton will scatter the other before colliding, if they are slightly
>misaligned... ...if the protons are perfectly aligned, the fusion
>temperature is quite modest -- I think of the order of kilovolts...
>But I can't figure out how to get the required kilovolts into that
>solution with electrodes...

The alternative is that this is non-thermal fusion.  The temperatures
are not an end in themselves:  they are a way of pushing nuclei very
close together.  As Paul Dietz speculated, this may be pycnonuclear
fusion:  fusion induced by pressure rather than temperature.  I'm more
than slightly surprised that they can get enough pressure out of
chemical bonds, mind you...
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]


From: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Room Temperature Fusion - possible indication?
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Posted: Sat Mar 25 11:01:12 1989

[e-mail] (Matthew B. Kennel) writes:

>Effective mass usually only comes into play in the band-theory of
>electrons---because of the exclusion principle the electrons can't pile into
>the low lying energy levels, thus the highest states have energies way above
>the ambient temperature (50,000K vs. 300K).  But, in metals at least, this
>means 1eV instead of 1/40 eV.  Even if there were enough H's for a similar
>thing to happen, I don't think there would be near enough to get over the
>coulomb barrier for the nuclei in any obvious way.

There are a class of compounds called "heavy fermion" compounds that
were all the rage among superconductivity researchers before the high Tc
discoveries.  In these compounds, some electrons have enormous effective
masses - as much as the mass of a proton.  I was wondering if such
an electron would also have a proportionally smaller "effective wavelength",
and therefore be able to make deuterons come closer together, much as
a negative muon does in mu-cat fusion.

I would like to know if Pons and Fleischman have done a control with
ordinary water.  If they were giving a press release, they really
should also have handed out preprints.  It's not as if someone else is
now going to steal the credit, and if it's all a mistake their names
are s**t no matter what they do now.

    Paul F. Dietz
    [e-mail]


From: [e-mail] (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications?
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Posted: Tue Mar 28 12:35:57 1989

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Prem Sobel) writes:
>Unless I have slipped a decimal point. It is under 1.6*10^9 miles round
>trip to/from the asetroid belt...
>which if one went at 1g until half way then at 1g to slow down would take:
>    t=sqrt(5280*10^8) ~= 73*10^4 sec ~=200 hours ~= 9 days

Accelerating at 1G (9.81 m/s/s, the Imperial units are useless garbage
when it comes to calculations like this) for 200 hours is a total
delta-V of about 7e6 m/s (7000 kps).  If we assume a mass ratio of 10,
which means the ship is mostly fuel but still manageable for a single
stage, exhaust velocity is 7e6/ln(10), about 3000 kps.  Assuming a
100-ton (metric) ship (fully fueled), we "burn" 0.125 kg/s.  (We will
ignore the change in thrust needed to maintain a constant 1G, and
assume constant thrust for the moment.)  Accelerating that mass flow
to 3000 kps requires 0.5*0.125*(3e6*3e6) == 560e9 watts of power,
assuming no losses.  Building a half-terawatt power plant that weighs
only a few tons is going to be, um, a challenge.  I don't think we're
going to see 1G missions to the asteroids right away.
--
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [e-mail]


From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Room Temperature Fusion
Organization: The Internet
Posted: Tue Mar 28 14:16:05 1989


    I just heard an interview with Stanley Pons on 'The Osgood File',
Charles Osgood, The CBS Radio Network.  He says two eminent physicists
looked at his work and said everything looked cool.  He also said skeptics
and beleivers alike should wait till May when the paper is published, and
that he thought full scale applications ought to be delayed 20 years, so
sufficient environmental impact studies could be made.

----
"Pave Paradise,                |         Dale M. Greer
     put up a parking lot."        |   Center for Space Sciences
        -- Joni Mitchell    | University of Texas at Dallas
                    | UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTD750::GREER

The opinions are my own, and may or may not reflect those of my employer.


From: [e-mail] (Kevin William Ryan)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Fusion news implications
Organization: Biology, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Posted: Tue Mar 28 23:52:48 1989





   Looking at the traffic concerning the announcements of possible room temp
fusion, I noticed a couple of common threads which I thought could use some
comment.

1)  FUSION ENGINES
   I suspect that we may _never_ get a fusion torch with this method.  Room
temp fusion (henceforth RTF) requires that the fusion take place in a palladium
matrix.  High power densities would, first, melt the palladium electrode,
not to mention boil the surrounding water, and second, would still be IN the
palladium - not spitting reation mass out the back.  I see RTF as a great
power source, which could drive more conventional electric or thermal engines.
High efficiency rockets require high velocity exhaust - RTF implies low
temperatures and hence slow moving particles.  The only thing that might be
moving fast is the neutron flux, which is non-directional and highly
unpleasant.

2)  CHEAP NUKES!!
   This requires comment from the particle physics folks out there.  Are the
neutrons emitted from RTF sufficient to create fussionable materials?  Please
post some knowledge for us poor untutored ones who know not the nuclear
cross section of common elements.

3)  UNLIMITED CHEAP POWER
   The age-old promise of nuclear fission, and the holy grail of fusion.
This one sounds good, folks, that's for certain.  Possible show inhibitors
(but not stoppers) are: neutron flux; lower than expected according to first
reports, but still there, tritium as waste; tritium falls into that unpleasant
class of isotopes with a half-life (12 years) long enough to be tough to
contain and short enough to cause damage - show me an isotope with a 500K year
half-life, and I'll build a bed out of it :-), and finally the apparent need
for D-D reactions.  Deuterium is not too hard to get, but neither is it
exactly common.  It will cost something to produce it on large scale basis.
   First reports on RTF claim that the process will be easily scaled to
produce power, which I tend to believe based on what I've heard so far.  If
everything works out as stated I can see large pressurised deuterium-enriched
vessels heating the first stage of steam turbine power plants, essentially
replacing the core of a nuclear reactor with a rather cleaner and much cheaper
heat source.


   All in all, I'm tickled pink by the news.  Hope it all works out.  With our
experience in fission plants, perhaps our grain of salt is big enough to
prevent some of the difficulties we've had with those.
                                                    kwr

   "Jest so ya know..."
P.S.  Anyone out there have decent information on RTF being possible with
     D-H reactions vs. D-D reactions?


From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Cold Fusion
Organization: The Internet
Posted: Wed Mar 29 11:31:00 1989

Question:

    If the fusion is occuring because of the "overlap" of the wave
functions, could it be that the cross section for the proton branch and
the neutron branch are sensitive to the precise distance? Can you
effectively "tune" the n,p output by controlling the distance?

I am suggesting (with out the experience to go off solving wave
functions myself) that the lattice separation in the Palladium may
control which reaction occurs. We would never have seen this before
because we have not had atoms at "static" distances from each other, we
have been slamming them as close together as possible as quickly as
possible.

Can anyone do the math? Seems like this might be down Bill Higgins or
Mr. Koloc's alley.


From: [e-mail] (Keith P. Mancus)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Building a fusion-based rocket
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Posted: Wed Mar 29 17:12:13 1989


    I've been trying to figure out how to get a "heat-pump" effect
to use the fusion system to pump up a heat exchanger to a reasonable
temperature.  That is, assume that our fusion source will remain at
the boiling point of water regardless of what mass flow of coolant
we pass through it.  What coolant should we choose to allow a
production of temperature of ~3000 K on the other end?

    To see this more clearly, see the following picture.

    |----------|    ->       ------        ->      -----------
    |           ------------| 2  |-------------|            |
    |           ------------|    |-------------|            |
    |           |           ------              |            |
    |    1       |                              |        3    |
    |           |              ------          |            |
    |           |--------------|    |----------|            |
    |           |--------------| 4  |----------|            |
    |----------|              ------          -----------


    1>  This is the fusion reactor.  Presumably it uses liquid D2O
        at very high temperature.  Ideally it should run at 650 C
        or so, and very high pressure.  It vaporizes the working fluid.

    2>    This compressor compresses the working fluid (presumably a
        metal or mixture of metals -- NaK perhaps?) to much higher
        pressure.  In doing so it also raises the temperature.

    3>    This is the combustion chamber.  The working fluid, at high
        (preferably > 2000 C) temperature, goes through a heat exchanger
        which heats reaction mass (probably but not necessarily H2)
        and lets it flow through a standard rocket nozzle.

    4>    The working fluid is now liquid again.  It flows through a
        nozzle at (4) which drops it back to low pressure.  It
        then reenters (1) as a low pressure liquid again.

    This is basically a heat pump cycle, but at high temperatures.  We
certainly can't use water or Freon as the working fluid!  I haven't
worked out yet just how much of the energy producing the high temperature
at (3) comes from the heat at (1) and how much comes from the electrical
energy put in the compressor at (2).  We assume that a second cycle
operates between (1) and a low temperature radiator to produce the
electrical energy (through a turbine generator).
    Still in the thinking stage....



--
------------------------------------------------------------------
-Keith Mancus <[e-mail]>  <- preferred
              <[e-mail]>


From: [e-mail] (David Singh)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Pons' e-address
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Posted: Tue Mar 28 14:42:55 1989


Here's Dr. Pons's e-address:
[e-mail]
You can try to finger it first.


From: [e-mail] (ferguson ct 71078)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.research
Subject: Re: Room Temperature fusion - possible indications?
Organization: Harris GISD, Melbourne, FL
Posted: Mon Mar 27 14:30:06 1989

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Doug &) writes:

>I doubt that anyone could predict the total global geo-political
>impact of cheap (almost free by comparison to today's conventional
>sources) power. Let's try to list a few of the possible effects that
>would accrue in the coming 10 - 20 years if the fusion "breakthrough"
>is _not_ bogus.

My predictions:  :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

The president announces the formation of a special industry-government
consortium to ensure that the US funded research makes it into US
products before the Japanese beat us with our own technology.

The technology is used first in some defense system.

The US is first to the market with the technology but the Japanese
soon follow and their version costs about half that of any US version
since they have figured out how to make working reactors using
platinum and paladium alloyed with lower-cost materials.

The US companies complain the Japanese are dumping their reactors on
the US.  The Japanese deny the charge and tell the US companies to
stop whining.

The Japanese government is red-faced when Toshiba sells reactor
production machinery to the Russians.  The Japanese goverment resigns
in disgrace.  The new government claims that Japanese will support
voluntary import quotas to the US that turn out to be about 2x's their
present import quantities.  Pressure for the the US government to take
action grows.

The US government imposes import quotas on Japanese and Korean (they
are making them cheaper too) reactors.  It now costs about twice as
much to buy a reactor in the US as is does anywhere else in the world.

Meanwhile, US oil companies have spent billions cornering the market
on platinum and paladium.  They invest heavily in finding ways to mine
marginal ore deposits.

SOS (Same old schtick)

Chuck Ferguson             Harris Government Information Systems Division
[phone]             MS: W1/7732  PO Box 98000  Melbourne, FL 32902
Internet:                  ferguson@[e-mail]
uunet:                     uunet!x102a!x102c!ferguson