The old cold fusion quest

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
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Richard Hull
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The old cold fusion quest

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I once was very interested in cold fusion which morphed into the LENR (low energy nuclear reactions). I closely followed the scientific work around cold fusion and its theoretical basis. I would come to know cold fusion and its researchers. I also learned about the much touted and published failures, just as I have learned about the modern efforts at fusion and the far less touted failures that abound around every failed effort. Thus, my sour attitude towards all supposed fusion efforts.

I got side tracked in 1994 while attending a week long new energy conference in Denver as a paid technical advisor to Charles Yost, director of Electric Spacecraft, Incorporated out of Asheville , N.C. It was at a 3 day retreat for speakers, prior to the Denver conference at the Stanley Hotel in Lake Estes, Colorado that I met Peter Graneau, a respected Physicist from the MIT Bitter laboratory. At the time of our meeting, Peter was at Northeastern Univ. studying water arc explosions as part of his quest to fight for the full recognition of Ampere's original work based on longitudinal current elements as part of his push at re-examination of Newtonian or Galilean electrodynamics. He, like myself, was interested in the source of Inertia and we both held to Mach's principle. We bonded on that right away and stuck together like glue throughout the conference having all our meals together and many walks and discussions in the brisk, fresh open, albeit thin air of Lake Estes, Colorado.

Upon learning that I was an electrical engineer and an avid Tesla coil builder at the time, he asked if I had ever heard of water arc explosions. He figured that I might be interested in the work. What's more, he invited me to join a team of scientists and engineers studying the process of what he felt was the release of stored energy in water bonds in these explosions. I agreed that if he sent me some of his peer reviewed papers, I would read them and consider joining him in the effort. He also sent a copy of his recent book. I was intrigued. Over the next 5 years I worked with Peter, his physics PhD son, Neal Graneau and George Hathaway, another electrical engineer in Canada, to pull together a paper on the subject. My experiments came to good results as I was forced to spend about $3000 to purchase instruments and materials needed to play the game. Peter came to praise me for discovering the "fog" on video and in still images that helped in Peter and Neal's calculations. After peer review, our paper was published in the Journal of Plasma Physics in 2000. (My only published scientific work!)

https://www.scribd.com/doc/15115795/Gra ... Explosions

I was, by that time, working with the fusor and left LENR, the water arc work and my Tesla work in the dust. Needless to say, I did fusion and helped bring the fusor to the fore in amateur fusion efforts.

Who was Peter Graneau? He was a hard working Physicist looking deeply into ideas and concepts that Physics either passed by or felt no longer valid. He fought for a review of electrodynamics and later the concept of inertia and its origins.

A memorial to his history and life work can be found at


https://www.infinite-energy.com/images/ ... moriam.pdf

There are various types of physicists. Among them are the type that will not question accepted fundamentals that they have been taught to believe in regardless of issues where questions once arrived regarding them, were swept aside by additional complications to put the thumb in the leaky dike of a seemingly good theoretical idea. The much rarer type of physicist questions fundamentals at the core level and who will question the rather continuous complications needed to make the original theory hold up over time. Such physicists are Thomas Phipps and Peter Graneau. I am proud to have known these interesting Physicists willing to poke at the establishment, not due to obstinance, but through thought, and questioning introspection based on full PhD knowledge of the subject as accepted in their field.

Richard Hull
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Water arc gun dumping 600 joules into 1cc of deionized water. circa 1996
Water arc gun dumping 600 joules into 1cc of deionized water. circa 1996
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Richard Hull
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Re: The old cold fusion quest

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Added a photo above. Did a lot of digging in my old notebooks for this one! This was before I had put in a complete second floor to the lab.

I also dug up a BBC TV show where Gillian Anderson (X-files) Narrated and talked about new energy. Grainy and far over hyped for TV Peter Graneau and I appeared. less than a 3 minute blast.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcBb1CIRH8w

You find stuff on You Tube...I have never placed anything on You Tube, but others have of my work. Here is a crazy piece of video shot "for fun" firing of the water arc gun. I forget who shot this video, but I wish he had a tripod, you will too. All of my gun barrels were smooth bore, 50 caliber and custom made of rifle grade steel by Douglas Barrels makers of custom gun barrels. The round balls are .500 nylon and used in kinetic energy studies of water arc work. Above 300 Joules and balls would invariably shatter to mere shards, such was the brissance of the explosion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pnriCJCAiE


Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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