Cold fusion

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rock nj (talk | contribs) at 22:46, 2 October 2006 (We Need The References Section to the Cold Fusion Article. Argue over the content all you want, but there is no reason to censor the references that readers would find useful to learn more about CF.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 22:46, 2 October 2006 by Rock nj (talk | contribs) (We Need The References Section to the Cold Fusion Article. Argue over the content all you want, but there is no reason to censor the references that readers would find useful to learn more about CF.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Template:Totallydisputed

This article is about the nuclear reaction. For the computer programming language, see ColdFusion.

File:ColdFusion.jpg

Charles Bennett examines three "cold fusion" tests cells at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA

Cold fusion cell at the US Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego, CA (2005)

Cold fusion is a theoretical fusion reaction that occurs near room temperature and pressure using relatively simple devices. The temperatures and pressures required for thermonuclear reactions are tremendous, and must be contained within an as-yet technologically impractical fusion reactor - or be released, as by a fusion bomb. In a narrower sense, "cold fusion" also refers to a particular type of fusion supposedly occurring in electrolytic cells.

The term "cold fusion" was coined by Dr Paul Palmer of Brigham Young University in 1986 in an investigation of "geo-fusion", or the possible existence of fusion in a planetary core. It was brought into popular consciousness by the controversy surrounding the Fleischmann-Pons experiment in March of 1989. A number of other scientists have reported replication of their experimental observation of anomalous heat generation in electrolytic cells, but in a non-predictable way, and most scientists believe that there is no proof of cold fusion in these experiments.

The subject has been of scientific interest since nuclear fusion was first understood. Hot nuclear fusion using deuterium yields large amounts of energy, uses an abundant fuel source, and produces only small amounts of manageable waste; thus a cheap and simple process of nuclear fusion would have great economic impact. Unfortunately, no "cold" fusion experiments that gave an otherwise unexplainable net release of energy have so far been reproduceable.

History of cold fusion by electrolysis

Early work

The idea that palladium or titanium might catalyze fusion stems from the special ability of these metals to absorb large quantities of hydrogen (including its deuterium isotope), the hope being that deuterium atoms would be close enough together to induce fusion at ordinary temperatures. The special ability of palladium to absorb hydrogen was recognized in the nineteenth century. In the late nineteen-twenties, two German scientists, F. Paneth and K. Peters, reported the transformation of hydrogen into helium by spontaneous nuclear catalysis when hydrogen is absorbed by finely divided palladium at room temperature. These authors later acknowledged that the helium they measured was due to background from the air.

In 1927, Swedish scientist J. Tandberg said that he had fused hydrogen into helium in an electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes. On the basis of his work he applied for a Swedish patent for "a method to produce helium and useful reaction energy". After deuterium was discovered in 1932, Tandberg continued his experiments with heavy water. Due to Paneth and Peters' retraction, Tandberg's patent application was eventually denied.

Pons and Fleischmann's experiment

On March 23, 1989, the chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann ("P and F") at the University of Utah held a press conference and reported the production of excess heat that could only be explained by a nuclear process. The report was particularly astounding given the simplicity of the equipment, just a pair of electrodes connected to a battery and immersed in a jar of heavy water (dideuterium oxide). The press reported on the experiments widely, and it was one of the front-page items on most newspapers around the world. The immense beneficial implications of the Utah experiments, if they were correct, and the ready availability of the required equipment, led scientists around the world to attempt to repeat the experiments within hours of the announcement.

The press conference followed about a year of work of increasing tempo by Pons and Fleischmann, who had been working on their basic experiments since 1984. In 1988 they applied to the US Department of Energy for funding for a larger series of experiments: up to this point they had been running their experiments "out of pocket".

The grant proposal was turned over to several people for peer review, including Steven Jones of Brigham Young University. Jones had worked on muon-catalyzed fusion for some time, and had written an article on the topic entitled Cold Nuclear Fusion that had been published in Scientific American in July 1987. He had since turned his attention to the problem of fusion in high-pressure environments, believing it could explain the fact that the interior temperature of the Earth was hotter than could be explained without nuclear reactions, and by unusually high concentrations of helium-3 around volcanoes that implied some sort of nuclear reaction within. At first he worked with diamond anvils, but had since moved to electrolytic cells similar to those being worked on by Pons and Fleischmann, which he referred to as piezonuclear fusion. In order to characterize the reactions, Jones had spent considerable time designing and building a neutron counter, one able to accurately measure the tiny numbers of neutrons being produced in his experiments.

Both teams were in Utah, and met on several occasions to discuss sharing work and techniques. During this time Pons and Fleischmann described their experiments as generating considerable "excess energy", excess in that it could not be explained by chemical reactions alone. If this were true, their device would have considerable commercial value, and should be protected by patents. Jones was measuring neutron flux instead, and seems to have considered it primarily of scientific interest, not commercial. In order to avoid problems in the future, the teams apparently agreed to simultaneously publish their results, although their accounts of their March 6th meeting differ.

In mid-March both teams were ready to publish, and Fleischmann and Jones were to meet at the airport on the 24th to both hand in their papers at the exact same time. However Pons and Fleischmann then "jumped the gun", and held their press conference the day before. Jones, apparently furious at being "scooped", faxed in his paper to Nature as soon as he saw the press announcements. Thus the teams both rushed to publish, which has perhaps muddied the field more than any scientific aspects.

Within days scientists around the world had started work on duplications of the experiments. On April 10th a team at Texas A&M University published results of excess heat, and later that day a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology announced neutron production. Both results were widely reported on in the press. Not so well reported was the fact that both teams soon withdrew their results for lack of evidence. For the next six weeks competing claims, counterclaims, and suggested explanations kept the topic on the front pages, and led to what writers have referred to as "fusion confusion."

In mid-May Pons received a huge standing ovation during a presentation at the American Chemical Society. The same month the president of the University of Utah, who had already secured a $5 million commitment from his state legislature, asked for $25 million from the federal government to set up a "National Cold Fusion Institute". On May 1st a meeting of the American Physical Society held a session on cold fusion that ran past midnight; a string of failed experiments were reported. A second session started the next evening and continued in much the same manner. The field appeared split between the "chemists" and the "physicists".

At the end of May the Energy Research Advisory Board (under a charge of the US Department of Energy) formed a special panel to investigate cold fusion. The scientists in the panel found the evidence for cold fusion to be unconvincing. Nevertheless, the panel was "sympathetic toward modest support for carefully focused and cooperative experiments within the present funding system".

Both critics and those attempting replications were frustrated by what they said was incomplete information released by the University of Utah. With the initial reports suggesting successful duplication of their experiments there was not much public criticism, but a growing body of failed experiments started a "buzz" of their own. Pons and Fleischmann later apparently claimed that there was a "secret" to the experiment, a statement that infuriated the majority of scientists to the point of dismissing the experiment out of hand.

By the end of May much of the media attention had faded. This was due not only to the competing results and counterclaims, but also to the limited attention span of modern media. However, while the research effort also cooled to some degree, projects continued around the world.

Experimental set-up and observations

A cold fusion calorimeter of the open type, used at the New Hydrogen Energy Institute in Japan. *Source: SPAWAR/US Navy TR1862*

In their original set-up, Fleischmann and Pons used a Dewar flask (a double-walled vacuum flask) for the electrolysis, so that heat conduction would be minimal on the side and the bottom of the cell (only 5 % of the heat loss in this experiment). The cell flask was then submerged in a bath maintained at constant temperature to eliminate the effect of external heat sources. They used an open cell, thus allowing the gaseous deuterium and oxygen resulting from the electrolysis reaction to leave the cell (with some heat too). It was necessary to replenish the cell with heavy water at regular intervals. The cell was tall and narrow, so that the bubbling action of the gas kept the electrolyte well mixed and of a uniform temperature. Special attention was paid to the purity of the palladium cathode and electrolyte to prevent the build-up of material on its surface, especially after long periods of operation.

The cell was also instrumented with a thermistor to measure the temperature of the electrolyte, and an electrical heater to generate pulses of heat and calibrate the heat loss due to the gas outlet. After calibration, it was possible to compute the heat generated by the reaction.

A constant current was applied to the cell continuously for many weeks, and heavy water was added as necessary. For most of the time, the power input to the cell was equal to the power that went out of the cell within measuring accuracy, and the cell temperature was stable at around 30 °C. But then, at some point (and in some of the experiments), the temperature rose suddenly to about 50 °C without changes in the input power, for durations of 2 days or more. The generated power was calculated to be about 20 times the input power during the power bursts. Eventually the power bursts in any one cell would no longer occur and the cell was turned off.

Continuing efforts

There are still a number of people researching the possibilities of generating power with cold fusion. Scientists in several countries continue the research, and meet at the International Conference on Cold Fusion (see Proceedings at www.lenr-can.org).

The generation of excess heat has been reported by

Michael McKubre, director of the Energy Research Center at SRI International ,
Richard A. Oriani (University of Minnesota, in December 1990),
Robert A. Huggins (at Stanford University in March 1990),
Y. Arata (Osaka University, Japan),

among others. In the best experimental set-up, excess heat was observed in 50% of the experiment reproductions. Various fusion ashes and transmutations were observed by some scientists.

Dr. Michael McKubre thinks a working cold fusion reactor is possible. Dr. Edmund Storms, a former scientist with The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, maintains an international database of research into cold fusion.

In 2004, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) comissioned a panel of eighteen scientists to review new experimental evidence on cold fusion, to determine if their policies towards it should be altered. The panel was provided with a paper, New physical effects in metal deuterides, by those scientists that requested the review of the DOE. According to a summary of the report, "he conclusions reached by the reviewers... are similar to those found in the 1989 review."

Arguments in the controversy

A majority of scientists consider current cold fusion research to be pseudoscience, while proponents argue that they are conducting valid experiments that challenge mainstream science (see history of science and technology). Here are the main arguments in the controversy.

Reproducibility of the result

While some scientists have reported to have reproduced the excess heat with similar or different set-ups, they could not do it with predictable results, and many others failed. Some see this as a proof that the experiment is pseudoscience.

Yet, it is not uncommon for a new phenomenon to be difficult to control, and to bring erratic results. For example attempts to repeat electrostatic experiments (similar to those performed by Benjamin Franklin) often fail due to excessive air humidity. That does not mean that electrostatic phenomena are fictitious, or that experimental data are fraudulent. On the contrary, occasional observations of new events, by qualified experimentalists, can in some cases be the preliminary steps leading to recognized discoveries.

The reproducibility of the result will remain the main issue in the Cold Fusion controversy until a scientist designs an experiment that is fully reproducible by simply following a recipe, or that generates power continuously rather than sporadically.

Current understanding of nuclear process

The DOE panel says: "Nuclear fusion at room temperature, of the type discussed in this report, would be contrary to all understanding gained of nuclear reactions in the last half century; it would require the invention of an entirely new nuclear process".

However, this argument only says that the experiment has unexplained results, not that the experiment is wrong. As an analogy, superconductivity was observed in 1911, and explained theoretically only in 1957.

Current understanding of hot nuclear fusion shows that the following explanations are not adequate:

Nuclear reaction in general: The average density of deuterium in the palladium rod seems vastly insufficient to force pairs of nuclei close enough for fusion to occur according to mechanisms known to mainstream theories. The average distance is approximately 0.17 nanometers, a distance at which the attractive strong nuclear force cannot overcome the Coulomb repulsion. Actually, deuterium atoms are closer together in D2 gas molecules, which do not exhibit fusion.

Absence of standard nuclear fusion products: if the excess heat were generated by the fusion of 2 deuterium atoms, the most probable outcome would be the generation of either a tritium atom and a proton, or a He and a neutron. The level of neutrons, tritium and He actually observed in Fleischmann-Pons experiment have been well below the level expected in view of the heat generated, implying that these fusion reactions cannot explain it.

Fusion of deuterium into helium 4: if the excess heat were generated by the hot fusion of 2 deuterium atoms into He, a reaction which is normally extremely rare, gamma rays and helium would be generated. Again, insufficient levels of helium and gamma rays have been observed to explain the excess heat, and there is no known mechanism to explain how gamma rays could be converted into heat.

Possible commercial developments

Cold fusion researchers say that it could have a substantial economic impact, with advantages over plasma fusion (which has also not yet been developed for practical application) because it produces little ionizing radiation and can be scaled to small devices.

Cold fusion's commercial viability is unknown. The evidences of the excess heat effect are not accepted by a majority of scientists. If it exists, the effect would have to be thoroughly controlled before it could be safely scaled up to larger size for commercialization. Cells are orders-of-magnitude too small to be commercially viable (with typically less than a gram of material). Researchers have not yet discovered methods to prevent cathodes from deteriorating, cracking, and melting during the experiments. Additionally, all cold fusion experiments have produced power in bursts lasting for days or weeks, not for months as is needed for many commercial applications.

In 1995, Clean Energy Technology, Inc (CETI) demonstrated a 1-kilowatt cold fusion reactor at the Power-Gen '95 Americas power industry trade show in Anaheim, CA. They obtained several patents from the USPTO. As of 2006, no cold fusion reactor has been commercialized by CETI or the patent holders.

Companies publicly claiming to be developing cold fusion devices, include: Energetics Technologies Ltd. (Israel), D2Fusion, JET Thermal Products, Clean Energy Technologies, Inc. of Sarasota Florida (CETI), and ENECO of Salt Lake City. Ongoing developments concerning cold fusion commercialization efforts are tracked at peswiki. There are also some private cold fusion commercialization efforts that are rumored to be ongoing.

Arguments in the controversy

See also: 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion, cold fusion controversy

Theoretical possibility of fusion at low temperature

Main article: Condensed matter nuclear science

Cold fusion's most significant problem in the eyes of many scientists is that theories describing nuclear fusion can not explain how a cold fusion reaction could occur at relatively low temperatures, and that there is currently no accepted theory to explain cold fusion.

In order for fusion to occur, the electrostatic force (Coulomb repulsion) that repels the positively charged nuclei must be overcome. Once the distance between the nuclei becomes comparable to one femtometre, the attractive strong interaction takes over and the fusion may occur. However, bringing the nuclei so close together requires an energy on the order of 10 MeV per nucleus, whereas the energies of chemical reactions are on the order of several electron-volts; it is hard to explain where the required energy would come from in room-temperature matter.

Huizenga, who was the head of the DoE ERAB panel that dismissed cold fusion in 1989, concluded:

"If the claimed excess heat exceeds that possible by other conventional processes (chemical, mechanical, etc.), one must conclude that an error has been made in measuring the excess heat."

Nobel laureate Schwinger believed that "If a proven track record can be established... you have to believe it". He also believes that cold fusion does not violate conventional theory. As he puts it, "The defense is simply stated: The circumstances of cold fusion are not those of hot fusion". However, skeptics say that nuclei are so far apart in a metal lattice that it is hard to believe that the distant atoms could facilitate the fusion reaction. Moreover, the energy released in a nuclear reaction is so large that the crystal has no means to absorb it, unless it is spread out instantaneously over vast distances by some unknown mechanism.

Cold fusion researchers have proposed several theoretical hypothesis to explain the effect (see low energy nuclear reaction), but none has been confirmed by experiment.

Nuclear Transmutations

Nuclear transmutations have been reported in many cold fusion experiments since 1992. These reactions which may be a nuclear fusion or nuclear fission reaction result in the transformation of a chemical element into another. These experiments have been reviewed by Miley. (Dr. Miley has also achieved great success in "Hot Fusion" with his Inertial Electrostatic Confinement devices.)

Miley reports that several dozen laboratories are studying these effects. Some experiments result in the creation of only a few elements, while others result in a wide variety of elements from the periodic table. Calcium, copper, zinc, and iron were the most commonly reported elements. Lanthanides were also found: this is significant since they are unlikely to enter as impurities. In addition, the isotopic ratio of the observed elements differ from their natural isotropic ratio or natural abundance. Many elements have multiple isotopes and the percentages of the different isotopes are constant on the earth within one tenth of one percent. In general it requires gaseous diffusion, thermal diffusion, electromagnetic separation or other exotic processes of isotope separation or a nuclear reaction to change an element from its natural isotope ratio. The presence of an unnatural isotope ratio makes contamination an implausible explanation. Some experiments reported both transmutations and excess heat, but the correlation between the two effects has not been established. Radiations have also been reported. Miley also reviews possible theories to explain these observations.

So far the clearest evidence for transmutation has come from an experiment made by Iwamura and associates, and published in 2002 in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics (one of the top physics journals in Japan). Instead of using electrolysis, they forced deuterium gas to permeate through a thin layer of caesium (also known as cesium) deposited on calcium oxide and palladium, while periodically analyzing the nature of the surface through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. As the deuterium gas permeated over a period of a week, the amount of caesium progressively decreased while the amount of praseodymium increased, so that caesium appeared to be transmuted into praseodymium. When caesium was replaced by strontium, it was transmuted into molybdenum with anomalous isotopic composition. In both cases this represents an addition of four deuterium nuclei to the original element. This experiment was conducted in a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries clean room. They have produced these results six times, and reproducibility was good. The energy released by these transmutations was too low to be observed. When the calcium oxide was removed or when the deuterium gas was replaced by hydrogen, no transmutation was observed. The authors analyzed, and then rejected, the possibility to explain these various observations by contaminations. The experiment was replicated by researchers from Osaka University using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry to analyze the nature of the surface (the Pd complex samples were provided by Iwamura).In later similar experiments by Iwamura Barium 138 was reportedly transmuted to Samarium 150 and Barium 137 was transmuted into Samarium 149. The Barium 138 experiment used a natural isotope ratio of Barium. The Barium 137 experiment used a Barium 137 enriched isotope ratio. These transmutations represent an addition of six deuterium nuclei.

A 2004 DOE panelist said that "The paper by Iwamura et al. presented at ICCF10 (Ref. 47 in DOE31) does an exhaustive job of using a variety of modern analytical chemistry methods to identify elements produced on the surface of coated Pd cold-fusion foils. There are two very unusual aspects of this work:

(i) The energy source is gas pressure, permeation of D2 gas through the foils into vacuum.

(ii) The claim is made that if Cs is coated on the metal surface, it is converted into Pr; if Sr is coated on the metal surface, it is converted into Mo. The analytical results, from a variety of techniques, such as mass spectroscopy and electron spectroscopy, are very nice. It seems difficult at first glance to dispute the results. However, the Japanese workers conclude, not that the elements in question are constituents from the interior of the Pd that migrated to the surface, but that they are the products of sequential nuclear reactions, in which changes of atomic number and atomic mass of 4 and 8 are preferred.

From a nuclear physics perspective, such conclusions are not to be believed. The energetics of merging two deuterons in a fusion reaction are tough enough. Merging four deuterons with a heavy nucleus is not to be believed, especially when no evidence is presented for any nuclear products such as Y, Zr, and Nb that are between Sr and Mo. Yet people in the cold-fusion community are citing this paper as futher evidence for exotic nuclear phenomena.".

Cold fusion researchers responded: "The reviewer rejects the results based on nuclear theory it is "not to be believed," but then proposes an alternative explanation based on the anomalous element diffusing from the palladium interior. The anomalous element could not migrate from the interior of the palladium because:

1. Deuterium atoms, flowing from the surface to the interior, would cause diffusion of the anomalous element away from the surface, not toward the surface.

2. Mass spectroscopy done at various depths shows that the anomalous element was not present in the palladium.

3. The element that was originally on the surface disappears at the same rate as the anomalous element appears.

4. The isotopes of the anomalous element are unnatural, and the isotope shifts are exactly what are expected should the missing element transmute into the new element

Since the initial element disappears, if migration is the cause of the change, we have to postulate that the element applied to the surface migrates toward the interior, while the anomalous element migrates in the opposite direction toward the surface. Such explanations are mere handwaving, and violate as many expected behaviors as does cold fusion but in a different field of science. This kind of reasoning is typical of most reviews. In any case, the reviewer has missed the main point. Iwamura's data certainly justifies further study. The proposed theories, regardless of their source (including the reviewer's own hypothesis), are irrelevant."

Tadahiko Mizuno is another prominent transmutation experimenter. Bush and Eagleton have reported the appearance of radioactive isotopes with a half-life of 3,8 days in electrolytic cells, an observation that is difficult to explain by contamination or migration. Attempts to find at least partial theoretical explanations are being made by Takahashi and others. One proposal by Takahashi to explain the wide range of elements generated is that fission of palladium is initiated by photons.

One of the claims against cold fusion is that there no nuclear ash to prove a nuclear reaction occurred. Nuclear transmutations are by definition nuclear reactions and the nuclear ash remains after the experiment for a long time. If the experiments are valid nuclear transmutations prove that nuclear reactions are taking place in cold fusion experiments.

Another claim against cold fusion is that the apparent Coulomb barrier of a deuterium reaction cannot be over come. The Iwamura experiment gives the appearance at least than an enormous Coulomb barrier can be overcome.

Measurement of excess heat

File:SzpakIRcameraviews.jpg

A infrared picture showing the brief hot spots appearing randomly on the cathode. Presented by Szpak at ICCF10

Excess heat production is an important characteristic of the effect that has created much criticism. Some claim that the results may be in error because the levels of excess heat reported are often small, 50 to 200 milliwatts (one thousandth of a watt).

A review of excess heat experiments by Beaudette showed power outputs ranging from 15 milliwatts to 205 watts.

The cold fusion researchers presenting their review document to the 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion said that the possibility of calorimetric errors has been carefully considered, studied, tested and ultimately rejected by cold fusion researchers. They explain that, in 1989, Fleischmann and Pons used an open cell from which energy was lost in a variety of ways: the differential equation used to determine excess energy was awkward and subject to misunderstanding, and the method had an error of 1% or less. Recognizing these issues, SRI International and other research teams used a flow calorimeter around closed cells: the governing equations become trivial, and the method has an error of 0.5 % or better. Over 50 experiments conducted by SRI International showed excess power well above the accuracy of measurement. Arata and Zhang have observed excess heat power averaging 80 watts over 12 days. Control experiments using light water never showed excess heat.

However, many reviewers in the panel noted that poor experiment design, documentation, background control and other similar issues hampered the understanding and interpretation of the results presented to the DoE panel. The reviewers who did not find the production of excess power convincing said that all possible chemical and solid state causes of excess heat have not been investigated and eliminated as an explanation, that the magnitude of the effect has not increased in over a decade of work, or that production over a period of time is a few percent of the external power applied and hence calibration and systematic effects could account for the purported effect.

Other evidences of heat generation not reviewed by the DOE include the detection of hot spots by infra-red (see picture), the detection of mini-explosions by a piezo-electric substrate, and the observation of discrete sites exhibiting molten-like features that require substantial energy expenditure.

In 2005, Shanahan raised questions about the consequences of imperfect stirring of the electrolyte on the calibration of calorimeters before and during cold fusion experiments, and hence on the measurement of excess heat. They were addressed by Storms in a paper published in Thermochim. Acta, but a rebuttal was published.

Energy source versus power store

It has been suggested that the observed excess power output which begins after a cell is operated for a long time may be due to energy accumulated in the cell during operation. This would require a systematic error in calorimetry (in other words that the cell is drawing more power than goes out, but calorimetry incorrectly shows the two to be equal), or a very slow accumulation of energy below the heat measurement accuracy during prolonged loading of the cell.

The cold fusion researchers presenting their review document to the 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion said that the amount of energy reported in some of the experiments appears to be too great compared to the small mass of material in the cell, for it to be stored by any known chemical process. The energy released by electrolytic cells after all energy input are removed, in so-called "heat after death" experiments, are 2 or 3 orders of magnitude greater than what any chemical storage mechanism would allow.

Relation between excess heat and nuclear products

File:Autoradiograph200dpi.jpg

An autoradiograph showing X-rays from tritium in a cold fusion experiment at the Neutron Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay, India

For a nuclear reaction to be proposed as the source of energy, it is necessary to show that the amount of energy is related to the amount of nuclear products.

If the excess heat were generated by the hot fusion of two deuterium atoms, the most probable outcome, according to current theory, would be the generation of either a tritium and a proton, or a He and a neutron. The level of protons, tritium, neutrons and He actually observed in Fleischmann-Pons experiment have been higher than current theory asserts, but well below the level expected in view of the heat generated, implying that these reactions cannot explain it.

If the excess heat were generated by the hot fusion of two deuterium atoms into He, a reaction which is normally extremely rare, helium and gamma rays would be generated. Miles et al. showed that helium was indeed generated in quantity consistent with the excess heat, but no studies have shown levels of gamma rays consistent with the excess heat. Current nuclear theory cannot explain these results, and the statement "the heat comes from a nuclear source" remains a hypothesis.

Although there appears to be evidence of transmutations and isotope shifts near the cathode surface in some experiments, cold fusion researchers generally consider that these anomalies are not the ash associated with the primary excess heat effect.

Reproducibility of the result

While some scientists have reported to have reproduced the excess heat with similar or different set-ups, they could not do so with predictable results, and many others failed. Some see this as a proof that the cold fusion is pseudoscience, or more precisely, pathological science.

Yet, the 1989 DOE panel said: "Even a single short but valid cold fusion period would be revolutionary. As a result, it is difficult convincingly to resolve all cold fusion claims since, for example, any good experiment that fails to find cold fusion can be discounted as merely not working for unknown reasons.".

Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger said that it is not uncommon to have difficulty in reproducing a new phenomenon that involves an ill-understood macroscopic control of a microscopic mechanism. As examples, he gave the onset of microchip studies, and the discovery of high temperature superconductivity.

The cold fusion researchers presenting their review document to the 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion said that the observation of excess heat has been reproduced, that it can be reproduced at will when the proper conditions are reproduced, and that many of the reasons for failure to reproduce it have been discovered.

Suppression of cold fusion research

In 1991, Dr. Eugene Mallove said that the negative report issued by MIT's Plasma Fusion Center in 1989, which was highly influential in the controversy, was fraudulent because data was shifted without explanation, and as a consequence, this action obscured a possible positive excess heat result at MIT. In protest of MIT's failure to discuss and acknowledge the significance of this data shift, he resigned from his post of chief science writer at the MIT News office on June 7, 1991. He maintained that the data shift was biased to both support the conventional belief in the non-existence of the cold fusion effect as well as to protect the financial interests of the plasma fusion center's research in hot fusion.

Cold fusion researchers claim that cold fusion is suppressed, and that skeptics suffer from pathological disbelief. They say that there is virtually no possibility for funding in cold fusion in the United States, and no possibility of getting published. They say that people in universities refuse to work on it because they would be ridiculed by their colleagues.

Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger said that he has experienced "the pressure for conformity in editor's rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous reviewers. The replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science". He resigned as Member and Fellow of the American Physical Society, in protest of its peer review practice on cold fusion.

Notes

Physicist Richard Garwin, IBM fellow emeritus at the Watson Research Center, commented about investigating cold fusion claims at a 2005 meeting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "If one had that energy, that would be great. And I would be the first one to cheer. But why can not reproduce the energy that they get?"
Hagelstein P. et al., "New physical effects in metal deuterides", submitted to the 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion
Report of the review from the DOE and DOE press-release
Rothwell, Jed, "Cold Fusion and the Future", 2004-2006
Krivit, S.B., "How can cold fusion be real, considering that it was disproved by several well-respected labs in 1989", 2005
Whatever happened to cold fusion?, PhysicsWeb, March 1999
Jed Rothwell, One kilowatt cold fusion reactor demonstrated, Infinite Energy Magazine, Dec 5-7, 1995
The Light Party, "Japanese cold fusion program to end", 1996
Krivit, S.B., New Energy Times # 15, March 10, 2006
Close, F., "Too Hot to Handle. The Race for Cold Fusion." 1992, New York: Penguin, paperback.
Huizenga, J.R., "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century". second ed. 1993, New York: Oxford University Press.
Huizenga, J.R., "Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century". second ed. 1993, New York: Oxford University Press.
"Cold fusion: Does it have a future?", Schwinger, J., Evol. Trends Phys. Sci., Proc. Yoshio Nishina Centen. Symp., Tokyo 1990, 1991. 57: p. 171.
Goodstein, D. "Whatever happened to cold fusion?", 'The American Scholar' 63(4), Fall 1994, 527-541
Miley, G. H. and P. Shrestha. "Review Of Transmutation Reactions In Solids". in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003. Cambridge, MA.
Miley, G. H. and P. Shrestha. "Review Of Transmutation Reactions In Solids". in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003. Cambridge, MA.
Yasuhiro Iwamura, Mitsuru Sakano, and Takehiko Itoh, "Elemental analysis of Pd complexes: Effects of D2 gas permeation", Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Vol 41 (2002) pp4642-4650
Taichi Higashiyama, Mitsuru Sakano, Hiroyuki Miyamaru, and Akito Takahashi. "Replication of MHI Transmutation Experiment by D2 Gas Permeation Through Pd Complex". Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003.
Iwamura, Y. Observation of Nuclear Transmutation Reactions induced by D2 Gas Permeation through Pd Complexes. in Eleventh International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. 2004. Marseille, France.]
Reviewer #7, "Original comments from the reviewers of the 2004 DOE Cold Fusion review", New Energy Times
Storms E, Rothwell, J, "Critique of the DOE review",
Mizuno, T. "Experimental Confirmation of the Nuclear Reaction at Low Energy Caused by Electrolysis in the Electrolyte". Proceeding for the Symposium on Advanced Research in Technology 2000, Hokkaido University, March 15, 16, 17, 2000. pp. 95-106
Mizuno, T., "Nuclear Transmutation: The Reality of Cold Fusion". 1998, Concord, NH: Infinite Energy Press
Bush, R.T. and Eagleton, R.D., "Evidence of electrolytically induced transmutation and radioactivity correlated with excess heat in Electrolytic cells with light water rubidium salt electroylytes", Trans. Fusion Technol., 1994. 26(4T): p. 334, Cited by Ed. Storms
Takahashi, A., Ohta, M., Mizuno, T., "Production of Stable Isotopes by Selective Channel Photofission of Pd". Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. A, 2001. 40(12): p. 7031-7046. .
Takahashi A. "Mechanism of Deuteron Cluster Fusion by EQPET Model"”. in Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion. 2003
Szpak S. et al., "Polarized D/Pd-D2O system: Hot spots and mini-explosions", ICCF 10, 2003
Beaudette, Charles. Excess Heat: Why Cold Fusion Research Prevailed, 2nd. Ed. Pages 203-205. South Bristol, ME, Oak Grove Press, 2002. ISBN 0967854830.
See the work of Arata and Zhang, cited in Appendix C of the review document submitted to the 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion
Szpak S. et al., "Polarized D/Pd-D2O system: Hot spots and mini-explosions", ICCF 10, 2003
Szpak S. "Evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd Lattice"", Naturwissenschaften, 2005
Shanahan, K., "Comments on "Thermal behavior of polarized Pd/D electrodes prepared by co-deposition"", Thermochimica Acta, 428(1-2) (2005) 207
Storms, E., "Comment on papers by K. Shanahan that propose to explain anomalous heat generated by cold fusion". Thermochim. Acta, 2006. 441: p. 207-209
Shanahan, K., "Reply to "Comment on papers by K. Shanahan that propose to explain anomalous heat geneated by cold fusion", E. Storms", Thermochim. ActaThermochimica Acta, 441 (2006) 210-214
Hagelstein P. et al., "New physical effects in metal deuterides", submitted to the 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion
Pons S., Fleischmann, "Heat after death", presented at ICCF-4, 1993,
Iyengar, P.K. et al., "Overview of BARC studies in cold fusion", presented at ICCF1, 1990
Miles, M.H., et al., "Correlation of excess power and helium production during D2O and H2O electrolysis using palladium cathodes". J. Electroanal. Chem., 1993. 346: p. 99.
Hagelstein P. et al., "New physical effects in metal deuterides", submitted to the 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion
Energy Research Advisory Board of the United States Department of Energy, "Report on Cold fusion research", Nov 1989
Schwinger, J., "Cold fusion: Does it have a future?", Evol. Trends Phys. Sci., Proc. Yoshio Nishina Centen. Symp., Tokyo 1990, 1991. 57: p. 171.
Mallove, E. "MIT and cold fusion: a special report", 1999
Josephson, B. D., "Pathological disbelief", 2004
"DOE Warms to Cold Fusion", Physics Today, April 2004, pp 27
"In from the cold", The Guardian, March 24, 2005
Schwinger, J., "Cold fusion: Does it have a future?", Evol. Trends Phys. Sci., Proc. Yoshio Nishina Centen. Symp., Tokyo 1990, 1991. 57: p. 171.

Misplaced Pages

History of cold fusion by electrolysis

Early work

Pons and Fleischmann's experiment

Experimental set-up and observations

Continuing efforts

Arguments in the controversy

Reproducibility of the result

Current understanding of nuclear process

Possible commercial developments

Arguments in the controversy

Theoretical possibility of fusion at low temperature

Nuclear Transmutations

Measurement of excess heat

Energy source versus power store

Relation between excess heat and nuclear products

Reproducibility of the result

Suppression of cold fusion research

See also

Notes

Further reading

Reports and reviews

Journals and publications

Websites and repositories

News

Bibliography