UCLA Researchers Produce Nuclear Fusion

[Roland99]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=753&e=1&u=/ap/20050427/ap_on_sc/tabletop_fusion&sid=84439559

LOS ANGELES - A tabletop experiment created nuclear fusion — long seen as a possible clean energy solution — under lab conditions, scientists reported.

<...>

In the UCLA experiment, scientists placed a tiny crystal that can generate a strong electric field into a vacuum chamber filled with deuterium gas, a form of hydrogen capable of fusion. Then the researchers activated the crystal by heating it.

The resulting electric field created a beam of charged deuterium atoms that struck a nearby target, which was embedded with yet more deuterium. When some of the deuterium atoms in the beam collided with their counterparts in the target, they fused.

The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with subatomic particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in — an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. UCLA? That would be...a liberal college?

[Merlin]

2. Ahahahaha! Very funny!

Sure they did!

This is becoming the equivalent of Elvis sightings.

[Roland99]

3. Uhhhh....

But the amount of energy produced was too little to be seen as a breakthrough in solving the world's energy needs



Fusion experts noted that the UCLA experiment was credible because, unlike the 1989 work, it didn't violate basic principles of physics.

[Javaman]

16. "you cana change the laws of physics!"

[Zynx]

5. Actually, this is legit, it's just not the Holy Grail

The science looks good - but as the article states, this isn't the sort of reaction they need to make power plants.

[Ian David]

7. Sorry, I was off link-hunting until after you posted that

Time to read, now

[Ian David]

11. Yes, it looks good to me- but I know enough to say I don't know enough

I'll watch this with keen interest and see what people smarter than I am say about it.

Hey, is that a particle accelerator in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Related story?
Exploding Toads Puzzle German Scientists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3552820

[Salviati]

21. I wonder if they can use this to make sub-critical fission plants though..

You can take the fuel rods in a fission plant, and place them sparsly enough so that they cannot support a chain reaction, and then use these devices to provide enough neutron flux to keep the fission going. Want to turn off the plant? No problem, just turn off the fusion devices, and the fission reaction will peter out. Absolutely no chance of a runaway fission meltdown.

Plus, I think that getting a cheap neutron source is exactly what they've been looking for in order to make transmutation of radioactive waste viable. Though I'm not too sure of this, it may be possible to use this neutron source to change all of our wastes with half lives of tens of thousands of years to products with half lives orders of magnitude smaller...

[daleo]

4. It might help oil and homeland security though.

Two things dear to neo-con hearts.

"For years, scientists have sought to harness controllable nuclear fusion, the same power that lights the sun and stars. This latest experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While falling short as a way to produce energy, the method could have potential uses in the oil-drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, one of the physicists who did the experiment at the University of California, Los Angeles."
...
"UCLA's Putterman said future experiments will focus on refining the technique for potential commercial uses, including designing portable neutron generators that could be used for oil well drilling or scanning luggage and cargo at airports."

[Ian David]

9. Here's the article in Nature (peer reviewed, yes?)

Nature 434, 1057 (28 April 2005) | doi: 10.1038/4341057a
Physicists look to crystal device for future of fusion

Mark Peplow, London
Top of page
Abstract

Desktop apparatus yields stream of neutrons.

Seth Putterman is usually on the side of the sceptics when it comes to tabletop fusion. But now he has created a device that may convince researchers to change their minds about the 'f-word'.

Tabletop fusion has been a touchy subject since Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann said in 1989 that they had achieved 'cold fusion' at room temperature. Putterman helped to discredit this claim, as well as more recent reports of 'bubble fusion'.

Now Putterman, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has turned a tiny crystal into a particle accelerator. When its electric field is focused by a tungsten needle, it fires deuterium ions into a target so fast that the colliding nuclei fuse to create a stream of neutrons.

Putterman is not claiming to have created a source of virtually unlimited energy, because the reaction isn't self-sustaining. But until now, achieving any kind of fusion in the lab has required bulky accelerators with large electricity supplies. Replacing that with a small crystal is revolutionary. "The amazing thing is that the crystal can be used as an accelerator without plugging it in to a power station," says Putterman.

The result is published in this week's Nature (see page 1115).

More:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7037/full/4341057a.html

[daleo]

15. I just see the news story, not the peer reviewed article

That might require a subscription, though. It would be interesting to see what the energy balance of the reaction is, and whether they are at all close to net energy gain. Certainly the fact that any sort of fusion has been accomplished without the sorts of temperatures and magnetic containment needed thus far is interesting, and possibly revolutionary.

Tabletop implies the input power isn't that great. A stream of neutrons might eventually have military uses (particle weapon), although one doubts that the output power is great enough for that. However the use in well logging and security implies a use along those lines, but far below military power levels. I think in well logging for example, this technology might mean it wouldn't be necessary to have a potentially dangerous fission source around.

[Salviati]

22. it sounds like the energy input is provided by a very modest temperature..

...differential

It sounds as if the differance between body temperature and room temperature ~30 degrees F, is enough to power it. pretty wild stuff

[Ian David]

13. What if you made thousands of these the size of microchips...

... and scattered them across a few city blocks?

Granted, as soon as they ran out of battery power, they'd stop emitting neutrons.

Or, one could use tiny solar panels and a capacitors to power it indefinitely-- albeit intermittently.

Solar panel charges capacitor. Capacitor powers particle accelerator. Accelerator makes neutrons. Power runs-out. Device goes dormant while solar panel re-charges capacitor....

But could this gizmo be weaponized? Should we be worried about that, or should I just fit myself for a tinfoil hat?

[Ian David]

6. I'll read it with an open mind, but I suggest we not celebrate yet

Book Review
by Mike Epstein
Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion
Gary Taubes, Random House, NY, 1993.
Hardback, 503 pages.

<snip>

"Bad Science" follows the misadventures of cold fusion advocates and skeptics from 1989 to 1992, from the ecstatic beginning through the rapid demise. It also examines in great detail both the scientific and personal lives of the major players in the drama: Pons, Fleischmann, Jones, and Bockris. I suppose Mr. Taubes felt that the only way to explain the mass delusion of so many scientists was to provide a psychological basis for the phenomena. And you know, he’s right! When you start looking at scientists as human beings and not as computers on legs, you also start to realize their fallibility.

The book is a treasure-trove of great quotations:

* The Vernon Hughes law of low-level statistics ("Despite the fact that a three-sigma effect appears to have a 99.73 percent chance of being right, it will be wrong half the time") is used to examine the level of confidence at which scientists publish. Steve Jones is quoted to say "if 4 sigma publish."
* The wager of Blaise Pascal, who renounced a life of science for one of faith ("To bet on the existence of God and to be wrong is to lose little or nothing. To wager correctly that there is a god is to be rewarded with an infinity of infinitely happy life ... if you win you win everyting, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate then; wager that he does exist.") is used to explain why so many jumped on the cold fusion bandwagon. As the Cal Tech electrochemist Nathan Lewis said, "If cold fusion were true, electrochemists would all have funding beyond their wildest imaginations ... an electrochemist’s wet dream!"
* But perhaps the most telling quotes are from Fleischmann ("If you really don’t believe something deeply enough before you do an experiment, you will never get it to work") and Bockris ("Negative results can be obtained without skill and experience.") Indeed, I found the most valuable part of this book to be the close examination of how those without skill and experience, or even with skill and experience, got positive results when none existed.

Finally, perhaps the most vilified person in the book is John Bockris, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M. While many know Dr. Bockris from his distinguished career in electrochemical research, others will recall the recent media examination of his transmutation experiments (see Academic Freedom or Scientific Misconduct?). Taubes notes that Dr. Bockris' research group kept the cold fusion balloon aloft by claims of tritium in their cold fusion cells, and points an accusing finger at a Bockris graduate student, presents circumstantial evidence of fraudulent spiking and claims a cover-up.

More:
http://www.spectrometer.org/path/taubes.html

[Zynx]

8. Ah yes, the cold fusion crap

You still see this from time to time on pseudoscience and anti-oil sites.

The UCLA experiment is a net energy loser and conforms to known physical laws, though. So it is interesting and technically "fusion", but it is not creating a second sun or anything like that.

[Ian David]

10. We could still plant a silly doomsday conspiracy on a freeper board

Something to make the right-wing look foolish:

Doomsday Fears at RHIC
Skeptical Inquirer, May, 2000 by Thomas D. Gutierrez

This year, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is poised to begin a program of cutting-edge nuclear science. Recently, alarmist journalism unnecessarily raised public fears about implausible doomsday scenarios associated with the machine.

<snip>

In 1999, some segments of the media and the public fixated on several speculative doomsday scenarios at RHIC. How such claims began can be traced to a few articles in the popular press. However, there may have been latent confusion in the public regarding the science at RHIC that allowed the doomsday claims to easily rake hold. One common doomsday scenario claimed that the violently colliding nuclei would create a mini-black hole which would swallow Earth and everything on it. Another scenario involved the creation of strange matter which, through a chain reaction, may go on to precipitate all "regular matter" into "strange matter", also destroying the world. These concerns have been directly and rationally addressed officially by the lab itself and unofficially by the lab individual experts.

The mini-black hole scenario can be dismissed with simple physics arguments. There isn't enough matter or energy at RHIC to create a black hole. A back-of-the-envelope calculation demonstrates that RHIC lacks about thirty-six orders of magnitude in mass and energy to create a nucleus-sized black hole! With this heavy constraint, it is just about as likely that a black hole will randomly appear next to your head as you read this article. If a black hole were to be created with RHIC energies (using very generous assumptions), it would have to be around <10.sup.-38> meters in radius. Gravity expert Steven Carlip of the University of California at Davis has estimated that such a small black hole would harmlessly evaporate in about <10.sup.-90> seconds in a puff of Hawking radiation (Carlip 1999). Creating black holes at RHIC is not a realistic possibility.

<snip>

To put all doomsday notions to rest, we turn to cosmic rays. Cosmic rays include ubiquitous particles ranging in size from individual protons to large nuclei. There is a wide spectrum of energies associated with cosmic rays. Indeed, there are many cosmic ray collisions which are far more energetic than can be achieved in any laboratory, including RHIC. There are billions of RHIC-like events per second pounding into the Moon alone. This has been occurring over billions of years and each one is, in principle, capable of producing a strangelet or other catastrophe. With these natural statistics, no evidence of a voracious reaction has ever been observed on the Moon or elsewhere. This should be a convincing argument that experiments at RHIC won't herald doomsday.

More:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_3_24/ai_62102225

[Zynx]

14. Someone else will have to do it. I've been revoked repeatedly at FR

:evilgrin:

[Selatius]

12. I want my Mr. Fusion, dammit!

[Festivito]

17. This sounds pretty good to me.

No net power gain may be due to excessive atom misses. Percent hits could be improved.

This crystal when heated producing a STRONGER magnetic field is interesting by itself.

This passes my first-look smell test. Still, after so much misrepresentation over many years, I look forward to peer reviews.

If I had money, I'd bet some on this. But, alas, I haven't.

[Az_lefty]

18. Is this what has been called "cold fusion" ?

:shrug:

[Squeegee]

19. It's just a compact fusor

Much like one of these only smaller:


Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor

[hunter]

20. There is a lot of noise on this thread.

Most folks don't know you can buy off-the-shelf neutron generators, and that these are actual, working, tabletop fusion reactors.

But the machines are very inefficient. You have to pump a lot of energy into them just to get a little bit of fusion energy out.

It's true, you do get more heat coming out of the machine than the electrical input, that is for every kilowatt of electricity you put in you get a little more than a kilowatt of heat coming out, but thermodynamically there is no way to turn that heat back into a kilowatt-plus of electricity.

This crystal fusion device is in some ways a variation of other tabletop fusion reactors.

It's also cool. I want one.

[Rex_Goodheart]

23. For a brief moment there...

My heart raced in excitement. This world needs good news in the worst way.

[sweetheart]

24. UCLA's been doing that for several decades

The campus has its own nuclear reactor.. geesh. I recall a nuclear
fusion burst with exactly the same "talk" 27 years ago in the UCLA
physics labs. More energy goes in, a bright moment, and everybody
goes home with a warm fuzzy and daddy writes a cheque to the school
so they can keep up the magic tricks for a new generation.