12th Annual Cold Fuson Conference underway

[TBenson]

ICCF12 is in progress near Tokyo, Japan. Lots of wonderful and interesting papers as always.

www.iccf12.org

Alas I am not in attendance but hope to hear much by remote control.

[Richard Hull]

This is a conference that just wouldn't go away or die a natural death, much to the chagrin of many in the fusion community. It still exists only because more scientists are seeing interesting things that keep it alive.

However, just like REAL fusion, its promise is spotty and filled with no sense of general direction. Unlike its more respectable cousin, CF has little financial backing. It relies solely on inspired curiousity. Odd, how this is what should drive science in the first place.

Richard Hull

[Retric]

All I have to say is:

I agree with Richard Hull.

PS: Sorry, but I tend to be a little argumentative so I thought I would
agree with someone vs. directly commenting on could fusion.

[DaveC]

I liked your Freudian slip... calling it "could fusion"...

Dave Cooper

[TBenson]

That's much better than "mold fusion"

Yuck.

[Richard Hull]

Good one Tom! I am just a wait and see kinda guy, but know too many folks who are on the hunt and who have seen interesting anomolies. Nature just hasn't lifted her skirts high enough for us to see any of the really good stuff yet. We are sniffing after a lot of promising stuff though.

Richard Hull

[Todd Massure]

I recently rented a DVD called "Cold Fusion, Fire from Water"
It was narrated (rather badly) by the late, great "Scotty" from the original Star Trek. It seemed to be biased overall in a pro cold fusion kind of way. I'd give it about 2 or 2-1/2 stars out of five and wouldn't really recommend it, but it was interesting to see some of the experiments and see interview clips with Fleischman (I think it was him not Ponns) who still seems very certain that the experimental results were valid.
The main topics were that excess heat were often but not always observed vs. the argument that no excess neutrons have ever been detected. Is that right? No excess neutrons detected? ever? Some were saying that they had detected very small traces of Tritium. I'm not saying that it absolutely couldn't be, but I just don't see how there could be D-D reactions that don't give off neutrons 50% of the time.

[Richard Hull]

I will suggest a super read for the ultra curious. It is a modern tragedy within acedemia and illustrates the goings on between the the politics, the science and the economic reality of fusion investigation as told by a tenured professor of electrochemistry at Texas A&M that got embroiled and nearly roasted at the center of a major CF crisis where simple research was all that was attempted to be done.

This is an old posting from this very forum, but is still a stunning read. It is very well presented by a practising electro-chemist and acedemician.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7001#p48873

If you print this out it will be worth your time.

Richard Hull

[AbbaRue]

On this CF subject, I have always wanted to ask those people one simple question. Have any of them ever tested the device to see if the vapour they are getting is really steam, or just Ultrasonic Vapour. The device gives off a lot of noise, so there must be a lot of Ultrasonics present too. A friend of mine bought an Ultrasonic room humidifier. This thing used about 15 watts but gave off as much water vapour as a 1500 watt kettle would. Using there means of measuring efficency that humidifier was giving off 100 times as much energy as was going in. The present CF reactors are run at close to the boiling point of water, so everything would fool one into believing it was steam and not just vapours. The test for real steam would be to try and run a steam engine with it. Ultrasonic Vapour has no pressure to do work.

[TBenson]

Actually Todd the lack of neutrons is a defining feature of cold fusion. Yes that is why the traditional physicists don't believe it's possible. But neutrons aren't a required feature of fusion, any more than flapping is a required feature of flying. Neutrons happen to be what we KNOW is required for the type of fusion that we are familiar with. The whole point of cold fusion is to find something UNKNOWN. A type of nuclear reaction that is wholly and completely new, totally undiscovered.

Cold fusion is not the search for a "new way" to create the fusion that we already understand, but is the search for a totally new form of nuclear reaction, that we hypothesize is possible, that we think is happening deep within condensed materials under certain conditions, but which has been undiscovered until now.

Some theorists, Chubb and Brown in particular, have shown that, in theory, a reaction of the type we hypothesize is in fact quite likely.

Well, that's my view of CF, anyway. Am I 100% certain that it exists, and if it exists, that we'll be able to harness it? Heck no. There is always a huge dollop of sceptism and doubt in my mind.

But, that's the fun of this. I always wanted to do science..the real risky stuff, just like the old days. It's a huge thrill to be chasing something that is so elusive, and to know that the odds are stacked against you, but at the same time, to know that IF you succeed, the results could be historic. Of course that is true of everyone on this messageboard!

[Adam Szendrey]

Well said Tom!

Adam

[Richard Hull]

I place myself in the better than 60% certainty of CF as a reality. I think fusion probably happens in nature all the time and even in some biota, but not the energetic fusion sought after by the boiling water, hot fusioneers. (Obviously, energetic nuclear reactions in bioata is a no-no) I don't see much of a future for it in energy solutions, but in other areas, it will probably change science in ways we can't appreciate.

Richard Hull