Fusion, the big hardware kind, is one of those miracle promising technologies that always seems to be 30 years away.
In the late 1980s, claims about low energy (cold) fusion reactions were lambasted as huge blunders.
A small but persistent cohort of scientist and investors are more and more going public about the possibility of a game changing energy resource.
I’m just sayin’.
Tom Darden, the founder and CEO of the $2.2 billion private equity fund Cherokee Investment Partners, made his mark by acquiring and cleaning up hundreds of environmentally contaminated sites. Today he is also an early stage investor in clean technology, having put his own money into dozens of companies in areas ranging from smart grid to renewable energy, and prefab green buildings. More recently he’s backed a new approach to fusion, a potentially abundant and carbon-free form of energy that would operate at a much lower temperatures than big government projects around the world, which require temperatures of 100 million degrees centigrade and more.
This new technology, called Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR) is related but very different from the cold fusion technology that in 1989 researchers Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann claimed to have licked when they revealed to the world a simple tabletop machine designed to achieve a fusion reaction at room temperature. Their experiment was eventually debunked and since then the term cold fusion has become almost synonymous with scientific chicanery.
What does Darden, a no-nonsense, investor with a sharp eye on the bottom line and a successful track record, see in this new, risky technology? Fortune’s Brian Dumaine spoke to him to find out.
Q: How did you get involved with low-temperature fusion?
A: Well, I thought the issue was moot after scientists failed to replicate the Fleischman and Pons initial cold fusion experiments. I was literally unaware that people were working on this in labs. I’ve made about 35 clean technology investments, and I thought that if someone’s doing this I should have heard about it. Then three years ago I started to hear about progress being made in the field and I said, “Damn, you have to be kidding, it doesn’t make sense.”
As it turns out, many of those early efforts to replicate cold fusion did not correctly load the test reactors or attempt to properly measure heat. The scientists trying to replicate the work of Fleischman and Pons were mainly looking for nuclear signals, like radiation, which generally are not present. They missed that heat was the main by-product. In addition, I learned that there have been nearly 50 reported positive test results, including experiments at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, EPRI, and SRI.
Q: The conventional wisdom is that LENR violates the laws of physics.
A: That’s right. To create fusion energy you have to break the bonds in atoms and that takes a tremendous amount of force. That’s why the big government fusion projects have to use massive lasers or extreme heat—millions degrees centigrade—to break the bonds. Breaking those bonds at much lower temperatures is inconsistent with the laws of physics, as they’re now known.
Q: What changed your mind?
A: Scientists get locked into paradigms until the paradigm shifts. Then everyone happily shifts to the new truth and no one apologizes for being so stupid before. Low temperature fusion could be consistent with existing theories, we just don’t know how. It’s like when physicists say that according to the laws of aerodynamics bumblebees can’t fly but they do.
One private firm in the area is Brillouin Energy Corp. of Berkeley, California, where researchers are developing what they term a controlled electron capture reaction (CECR) process. In their experiments, ordinary hydrogen is loaded into a nickel lattice, and then an electronic pulse is passed through the system, using a proprietary control system. They claim that their device converts H-1 (ordinary hydrogen) to H-2 (deuterium), then to H-3 (tritium) and H-4 (quatrium), which then decays to He-4 and releases energy. They report that they have confirmed H-3 production in their process.
Additional technical details are given at the Brillouin Energy website, and in a patent application. Their patent application reads, in part, “Embodiments generate thermal energy by neutron generation, neutron capture, and subsequent transport of excess binding energy as useful heat for any application.”
Rossi and Industrial Heat, LLC
Perhaps the most startling (and most controversial) report is by an Italian-American engineer-entrepreneur named Andrea Rossi. Rossi claims that he has developed a tabletop reactor that produces heat by an as-yet-not-fully-understood LENR process.
Rossi has gone well beyond laboratory demonstration; he claims that he and the private firm Industrial Heat, LLC of Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, have actually installed a working system at an (undisclosed) commercial customer’s site.
According to Rossi and a handful of others who have observed the system in operation, it is producing 1 MWatt continuous net output power, in the form of heat, from a few grams of “fuel” in each of a set of modest-sized reactors in a network. The system has now been operating for approximately six months, as part of a one-year acceptance test. Rossi and IH LLC are in talks with Chinese firms for large-scale commercial manufacture.
Several “reliable sources” have visited Rossi’s commercial site, and have verified that the system is working as claimed, as evidenced, for example, by the customer’s significantly reduced electric bills.
On the downside, from a scientific point view, Rossi’s work leaves much to be desired, to say the least. Rossi remains tight-lipped as to technical details, preferring to protect his company’s intellectual property through silence.
However, a few details have now come to light. For example, Rossi was just granted a patent by the U.S. Patent Office. The patent includes some heretofore unknown details, such as the contents of the “fuel” in Rossi’s reactors: it is a powder of 50% nickel, 20% lithium and 30% lithium aluminum hydride.
Replications of Rossi’s work
Given that Rossi has been unwilling to divulge many details, several other research teams have been working largely independently with similar experimental designs.
In October 2014, a team of Italian and Swedish researchers released a paper entitled Observation of abundant heat production from a reactor device and of isotopic changes in the fuel. This paper claimed substantial power output, with a “coefficient of performance” (ratio of output heat to input power) of up to 3.6. The experiment was performed at an independent laboratory in Lugano, Switzerland.
The most intriguing results in the 2014 Lugano paper are the before-and-after analyses of the “fuel,” which found an “isotopic shift” had occurred in this material. In particular, the team found that lithium-7 had changed into lithium-6, and that nickel-58 and nickel-60 had changed to nickel-62. This is based on two different types of mass spectrometry measurements, using state-of-the-art equipment.
These changes can only be due to nuclear reactions of some sort — not conventional chemistry. The Lugano team is reportedly working on a new experiment, independent of Rossi, but as yet no details are known.
Another research team performing Rossi-type experiments is headed by the Russian physicist Alexander Parkhomov. He and others working with him report observing excess heat with a Rossi-type reactor running at 1347 degrees Celsius, with a coefficient of performance of 3.0. They also report observing excess heat in at least ten other experiments of this type to date.
Physics does not say that bumblebees can not fly, only that they can not glide. As far as cold fusion is concerned, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Cold fusion is simply not cold. Fusion requires the H atoms to merge. to merge you have to get over the electron replusion of the surrounding electron in each atom. That requires , a high energy state of the H atom to strip off the electron and raise the energy level of the proton and neutron remaining. To get a useful number of fusions you need a dense plasma. When you get a dense plasma where the electrons have been stripped off by the heat energy, the electrical fields and the resulting magnetic fields cause problems that prevent fusion of a large number of H ions to make power or even to hold the H ions in a high energy state. Cold fusion is the idea that some other atom or atoms may help overcome the electron replusion of the single electron around each H atom by stripping them off for a very short time so that H ions could fuse which of course ignors the replusion of the protons to each other, that is overcome by raising the energy of the protons in a regular plasma. Some types of atoms are useful in chemistry as they promote chemical reactions, none have been shone to promote nuclear reactions. In any case of cold fusion unless you are getting a neutron flux you are not getting fusion as the neutrons are released as the H fuses to make He.
Uh, Michael? That’s some fine-sounding “science” you’re regaling us with here, but you need to back up and seriously rethink some of it.
Like the fact that Hydrogen atoms have NO freaking neutrons!!??? Lord love a duck, but EVERYONE who has taken a chemistry class knows that the H atom is the very simplest of all—-ONE proton, ONE electron.
PS If memory serves, aren’t you the same MF who has made idiotic posts on Crock before? Perhaps part of a group of high school age trolls who like to crap up our serious discussions?
Go away! Don’t make us give you a wedgie, or a noogie, although both would be age-appropriate for you.
Well, you can get higher isotopes of hydrogen like Deuterium and Tritium that do contain neutrons, which I think was what he was talking about – these are the isotopes you typically use in nuclear fusion experiments.
You THINK that he was talking about isotopes? Read his BS again.
“That requires a high energy state of the H atom to strip off the electron and raise the energy level of the proton and neutron remaining.”
“In any case of cold fusion unless you are getting a neutron flux you are not getting fusion as the neutrons are released as the H fuses to make He”.
Does he even know what an “isotope” is?
You are far too kind when you impute your level of knowledge to him. He has NO idea what he is talking about.
Natural water is composed of most light water (H2O) with a smaller level of heavy water (D2O) with the latter being composed of Deuterium (a form of hydrogen with a neutron) so it is highly likely that neutrons are present. But if you really want to blow your mind then lookup “T2O” which is based upon Tritium. On top of all this, a free neutron can decay into a proton along with some other stuff (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron#Free_neutron_decay) -AND- protons can be forced to convert back into neutrons so you really can’t say that something is present or not (at least not with quantum mechanics). But all this stuff is moot because as Michael Fellion has already mentioned, you can’t have fusion without neutron flux. IMHO we must always be wary of chemists making claims of discovery which would normally come from nuclear physicists. To my mind, the first practical fusion generator will come from NIF (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility) which already works in principle by employing 192 gas-based lasers. This 1990s design could be modified to use semiconductor lasers which would enable a new design to be 90% smaller. Perhaps that resultant product could be put into commercial production. If that doesn’t work then my second choice would be ITER (https://www.iter.org/)
This post is deeply unconvincing. Hands on wallets, firmly.
Thank you for saving me from myself! After a quick first glance, I was about to cash in all my Solar Roadway and Clean Wind Energy Tower stock and sink it all into this latest NON-breakthrough. I was even considering NOT investing in Musk’s Mars venture (when it happens, that is—right now he’s too busy losing money on everything else he does, and hasn’t issued any stock)
Something is going on in these labs, but as you say, it is so “deeply unconvincing” that all would be advised to wait for real results. They’ve been working on it for 20+ years now, maybe another 20 will be enough?.
No one is asking for your money.
No. That’s wrong.
Big oil is asking for your money, and your tax support. Give generously.
The problem with some people is that they are not obedient to the scientific method, which is that empirical evidence rulz.
Period.
Declarative statements can take a long walk off a short pier.
Declarative statements such as “You have to overcome the Coulomb barrier” or “you have to have high temperatures” or “that’s how the sun does it, therefore that is the only way possible” or” neutrons aren’t given off, therefore my eyes deceive me. ”
Remember this if you cannot remember anything else.
“The evidence rules, not you nor your pet theory. “
Er… All those statements referring to physical phenomena are based on long observation of empirical evidence.
Long, but not complete observations.
Science is a process, not an endpoint.
Newton thought he had it down pat.
So did Lord Kelvin.
Now, so do you.
It’s a tradition.
If any of you are interested in actually looking at some of the evidence for “cold fusion” (also called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions or Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions) you can find lots of information here:
http://lenr-canr.org/
If people would stop ridiculing the subject and actually look at the evidence, they would see that it is certain that this is a real phenomenon. However, I’m not sure when or if this will be understood well enough to become a practical energy source.
Are you the same Jim Torson who believes in UFO’s and has been commenting on the web on them and on LENR (among other things) for years? I have been looking at “cold fusion” since it first “flopped”, and I will repeat that the evidence is “deeply unconvincing”. I AM glad that there are scientific Don Quixotes out there who are willing to tilt at windmills, and that they are able to find people to give them $$$$ to do so. Although I DID “ridicule” LENR, I also said that we should “wait for real results”. It would be terrific IF it ever works out, but we are a LOOOOOONG way from that. The “lots of information” list is quite outdated, and looks to be mostly popular “cash in on the flavor of the week” stuff. The DIA report (DIA-08-0911-003—13 November 2009) seems more credible, but it too basically says “Great concept, IF we ever figure it out and get it to work”.
PS Do you own any stock in any of these ventures? Are you selling it short? That’s the only way you’ll make any maoney anytime soon.
dumboldguy – Why the attempts at personal attacks? (That approach is usually used by people who don’t have good evidence in support of their viewpoint. It is also sometimes used by people who don’t use their real names.) Why bring up the unrelated subject of UFOs? My guess is that it was an attempt to discredit my opinion by implying that I am non-scientific or something. For what it may be worth, I have worked decades in “big science,” including a major radio astronomy observatory and work on NASA-funded planetary exploration projects. I have also worked on a project that monitors glacier retreat using satellite images.
However, I realized long ago that there are a number of subjects where conventional science gets it wrong because they refuse to look at the evidence. This includes both LENR and UFOs. (Climate change is a subject where they get it right because the evidence has been thoroughly examined.)
Since you brought it up, there is a lot of nonsense associated with UFOs, but I long ago realized it is a subject worthy of scientific investigation when an astronomer I worked with showed me a survey of members of the American Astronomical Society on the subject. This reported that astronomers have had puzzling UFO sightings, including metallic structured craft. I learned later that this includes Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto. If anyone is interested in this subject, see:
UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record
http://www.ufosontherecord.com/
UFO Skeptic – An information site on the UFO phenomenon by and for professional scientists
http://www.ufoskeptic.org/
You complained that the LENR website is outdated. This indicates that you didn’t seriously look at it. The upper-right corner News box has a link to new results from Edmund Storms, who is a prominent LENR researcher who has continued working on the subject after retiring from Los Alamos National Lab. This is dated a couple weeks ago. There is also a link to “most recent papers” where you can download many papers from 2015 as well as previous years.
No, I don’t own stock in any of these ventures, and I don’t recommend that anybody make such investments. Did you see my statement that I’m not sure when or if this will be understood well enough to become a practical energy source?
Hmmmm. I ask a simple and direct question—-“Are you the same Jim Torson who believes in UFO’s and has been commenting on the web on them and on LENR (among other things) for years?”, and YOU proceed to show some hypocrisy by turning it into a rather wimpy “personal attack” on ME with “…That approach is usually used by people who don’t have good evidence in support of their viewpoint. It is also sometimes used by people who don’t use their real names”.
You say—“Why bring up the unrelated subject of UFOs? My guess is that it was an attempt to discredit my opinion by implying that I am non-scientific or something”. I was merely trying to establish your credentials. Those who are narcissistic (or foolish) enough to post their real names on comments invite examination of what they’ve been up to on the web. Are you sensitive about the comments you made in so many places? Some of them did seem quite “unscientific” to me at first glance, but I did NOT state that here or even imply it. YOU plant that seed, not me. I myself have been fascinated by UFO’s since they first appeared when I was a kid, and have read much of what has come out whether it was “scientific” or not—-loved Chariots of the Gods. I am, however, waiting for more proof than anyone has ever come up with, and in the meantime will spend my time talking about AGW and climate change, areas that DO have some “meat” to chew on (and LENR still hasn’t got much).
I like your “appeal to authority” type “For what it may be worth…” maundering. I won’t respond in kind, because it’s irrelevant to argue about whose “CV is bigger”, but I will say that the “big science” that is relevant to AGW and climate change is NOT radio astronomy and NASA-funded planetary exploration projects (unless the planet is Earth). And you have also worked on a project that monitors glacier retreat using satellite images? That’s just swell! I have worked on a project for my entire life regarding the sun—-I look out the window every AM to prove it comes up—-so far so good—27,435 days in a row.
When you start to talk about “… a number of subjects where conventional science gets it wrong because they refuse to look at the evidence”, my crap detectors start to wiggle. By extension, that means you DO believe in both LENR and UFOs even though the “evidence” supporting them is not convincing—-but you refuse to accept that and are therefore guilty of the same sin you accuse “conventional science” of—-a rather circular argument on your part.
Yes, UFO’s are perhaps worthy of some “scientific” investigation, just as is SETI, but only provided that they do not take resources away from important research into things like AGW, climate change, and a permanent cure for ED and hemorrhoids. Thank you for the references, but I keep up to date by occasionally plucking the latest UFO books off the “new arrivals” shelf at the library and viewing the “new evidence for UFO’s” videos that keep popping up on Youtube. The topic is alive and well.
My observation (not “complaint”—you’re the complainer here) that the LIST of books on the LENR website is outdated is true, and yes, I didn’t bother to look at the “little boxes”. Why bother? I will wait for the announcements of some REAL progress to appear before I go into an in-depth study of LENR—-in 2, 10, 0r 20 years. At the rate we’re going CO2 will kill us before LENR saves us.
And “I’m not sure when or if this will be understood well enough to become a practical energy source?” IS something that you and I totally agree on. That’s why I classify it for now with Solar Roadway and CWET—-a nice “job-for-life” program for some scientists and entrepreneurs but a distraction from solutions we can employ right now—-like nuclear power, a faster transition to renewables, and the biggest low-hanging fruit, efficiency. Do you have an opinion on nuclear power? Should we ramp it up?
“Brevity is a great charm of eloquence”
Cicero
Those of us who actually follow this stuff know that this report is out of date. Things are progressing.
The Germans have interesting results that produce muons, not neutrons.
Warning. Only for True skeptics. Contains material that will offend pathological skeptics
http://phys.org/news/2015-09-small-scale-nuclear-fusion-energy-source.html#jCp
What? No takers?
Does the empirical evidence offend your nice, neat model that you worked so long and hard at?
It’s only a model you are defending.
If you modified or heaven forbid, dropped it, the sun would still come up in the morning.
Thanks for the post. Professor Robert V Duncan and his wife joined Texas Tech University in Jan 2015, (left Univ. of Missouri cited in 60 Minutes), with leadership positions. Former Governor Perry is not totally dumb, He surrounded himself with good forward looking scientists who saw the future of LENR as a result of an academic mess at Texas A &M regarding professor John Brockrus who, like Martin Fleishmannn , was an electrochemist ( not liked by Dr Blue Head of the Dow electrochimistry Lab). Brockrus repeated the Fleichmann and Pons work and reported tritium. He also did experiments on isotope transmutations with a goal of using the LENR reactions to convert some of the fission wastes into stable, non radioactive isotopes. Perry and his men , together, get the State to move the new stuff to Texas. Call me for more details about what is going on in LENR in Texas institutions and at Austin’s National Scientific (a maker of fine electrical control and monitoring equipment, very widely used at Dow. If there is to be big big big commercial news coming on the Rossi megawatt thermal plant, it should come late in Feb or early March 2016. 417 771 5695
Well, that is interesting. The moderator doesn’t like my comment? Doesn’t want it to be too high up the thread?
You do understand that you are playing fast and loose with the truth there, buddy. Your job is to keep the thread on track, not to color it with your bias.
I have not touched the comments on this thread. complain to wordpress.
Thanks for the clarification.
I had a inordinately long “waiting for moderation” sign on my comment. NSA?
Even more interesting.
my moderating sometimes gets delayed as I am always working on several projects.
Probably the Bavarian Illuminati. Those buggers can be such adolescents.
There are very big fish to fry here. The petro-dollar and hence American hegemony. Military implications. I would not be too flippant.
Nope.
Really, nope.
What has a chess cheat got to do with physics? Again you are allowing your model of reality triumph over the observed facts.
You’ve got a cheating chess player Model that you are attacking. That is a strawman.
I’m a little puzzled by the “there was once a fraud, so this is a fraud too” argument.
If you’re interested, I suggest you read the article to the end, so you can see what it is about and what it is referring to.
I’m often struck by how readily some of the most fundamental laws of physics are dismissed, while others are not. It’s very easy to underestimate how extraordinarily well-tested and well-understood the laws of physics that are being challenged here actually are.
If a man claimed to be able to catch a ten ton ball of steel dropped from an aeroplane, there wouldn’t be many people who would take that seriously. You wouldn’t find many people mocking dissenters for their faith in the laws of physics. We don’t mind accepting laws that our intuition can grasp.
The reasons cold fusion cannot happen are no less well tested and no less well understood than the reasons a man cannot catch a ten ton ball of steel dropped from an aeroplane, even if the principles behind them are more abstract and less amenable to our intuition. But they’re easy to dismiss: all we need is a lack of deep understanding or experience with nuclear physics, a lack that the vast majority of people possess (for very straightforward reasons).
So you’re welcome to believe and to mock, but to most physicists it’s clear that what is going on here is overwhelmingly more likely to be the result of delusion, if not outright fraud. And these are not good things to be supporting.
That’s the point of the article.
But sure, let’s see what they can do.
Bright-sidedness and wishful thinking are unfortunately hard-wired into too many human brains, even into those of some scientists who should know better. Article in the WashPost today crows about how there MAY be more water on Mars than we thought, and won’t it be wonderful that we MAY not have to haul as much water with us when we go there. Maybe this will lead to an upswing in talk from the crowd that says “The Hell with the Earth and climate change, if we make Earth unlivable we can always go to Mars”. But don’t get trampled in the stampede to buy tickets on Musk’s Mars Madness Shuttle—the results are tentative and “we need to do more study”.
Has anyone given any thought to the possibility of a deep dark conspiracy here?—-one supported by the fossil fuel interests? One that in true Merchants of Doubt fashion seeks to distract us from the truth of planetary destruction by holding out the possibility of THE SOLUTION(S)? Go to Mars! Or limitless and almost free non-carbon-based energy is just around the corner!!
So, not to worry—- we can just keep burning fossil fuels until that day comes—making more CO2 is just a “bridge” to mankind’s bright future. I am really looking forward to hearing about how all this unlimited cold fusion energy is going to be used to power machines that will capture and sequester the excess carbon from the atmosphere and oceans so that we can return the Earth to what it was like 100 years ago. Yep, the Koch’s will really get everyone’s attention when they float that one and Ford will sell even more F-150’s to those who will buy them because they KNOW that “it’s going to be OK”.
Yeah, for sure—-let’s see what they can do. And while we’re waiting, let’s ponder the “there was once a fraud, so this is a fraud too” argument. Flip the coin. Just because the Chess Man was a fraud does not mean that cold fusion is NOT a “fraud” also. There’s probably some fancy Latin logic term for that, but I can;t dredge it up.
The argument against this isn’t a “there was once a fraud, so this is a fraud too” argument. That’s an absurd and lazy misreading of the argument.
There was never a long-established and well-understood fundamental law of physics that made water on Mars impossible. That is also an absurd comparison.
This blog is dedicated to the importance of appreciating that the consensus of those who have devoted their lives to understanding a subject is worth more than the intuitions and fantasies of those who have not. It’s fascinating that people with this kind of dedication in one field can be willing to make exceptions so easily in another.
It’s a fascinating parallel with climate denial. To let go, all you have to do is recognise that it’s likely that other people have more expertise in this area than you.
As I said, I can’t fault anyone for not having a depth of understanding of nuclear physics. But I can fault people who think what knowledge they do have (of a subject outside their expertise) is enough to make them an authority or to claim that the majority of the community of those with genuine expertise might be clueless or lying. I don’t think there’s any excuse for that.
Oops, I just re-read your comment and realised that you were saying the opposite of what I thought you were saying.
Ah, that happens to me sometimes.
Sorry, old guy. Looks like I’m the dumb one this time 🙂
JFC, alexis! Thank you for that. I almost wasted the time composing a reply to you to that effect, but decided to look at this other message before I did.
I pretty much agree with what you said in your original comment, if not that it should have been directed at me, and we ARE on the same side here—-our “lack of expertise” in using the English language is perhaps all that stands between us.
Rereading my comment, it really doesn’t quite say what I wanted it to in places, and I myself could quarrel with parts of it—arguing with myself is something that “happens to me sometimes”, and the older I get, the more it happens. That’s one of the reasons I’m D.O.G.
Very embarrassing! SORRY DOG!
Anyway, now my attack-mode switch has loosened, I really hope our Greenman will think about this perspective a little. The vast majority of the stuff he does is brilliant. I was partly directing what I was saying at him rather than you, because I love his blog and I really don’t want him to be drawn towards the cuckoos.
I’ve had a go at PS before on nuclear issues – this isn’t the first time he’s nodded to the cranks on this subject.
My arguments are probably way too tempting to dismiss as some kind of arrogant establishment reactionary opinionated guff, if one is so inclined, which is a shame. I spend much of my life thinking very carefully about these sorts of things (when I’m not reading stupid things into other people’s comments!). But rhetoric isn’t my forte. There are some important, genuine points in there somewhere – I hope they can be seen as more thought-provoking than off-putting.
IMO, you don’t have to worry about Peter being “drawn towards the cuckoos”, and he has not really “nodded to the cranks” in the past. That’s not what you’ve really seen, but just what came through your “perceptual screens” (look it up).
What makes Crock so lively and so much more fun than sites like Skeptical Science is that Peter does love to stir the S***pot a bit with provocative topics, and he gets things jumping by allowing a lot of leeway for assorted cuckoos, cranks, morons, and paid denier whores like Russell Cook to post their moronic drivel so that the rest of us can then beat up on them. In the process, some science gets learned, some ignorance gets dispelled, and those of us with old brains get an anti-Alzheimer’s workout that’s more fun than doing crossword puzzles.
And you needn’t apologize for your “arguments”. Just put it out there. If you’re way off-base, it’s highly likely someone on Crock will point that out to you, with either some sarcasm, an outright accusation of ignorance or stupidity, or some probing questions.
I was 19 when that story came out in 1989, and when the stories came out about other labs’ failures. So in college I and my classmates in our science program joked a lot about cold fusion, and ridiculed the idea. I’m still skeptical. But I have hopefully grown more mature over the years, to the point where I think it’s wrong to ridicule something or someone for trying to do something nobody else is doing. It’s a shame the original scientists were ridiculed out of their careers.
Maybe the lack of reproducibility in results is a clue about what DRIVES the process to begin with. Maybe it’s the result of some impurity. Maybe the excess heat isn’t really there. Better minds than mine are looking at it. But to ridicule it off-hand, I don’t know, it’s the same thing as all the ridicule that gets heaped on stories like the solar highway. It’s an attempt to stifle people’s ideas, if they don’t fit your world-view, before the jury is in.
And no, I don’t think climate deniers are onto something. There’s just WAY too much evidence on the other side. Sometimes, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck.
I was 49 when the news came out in 1989, and didn’t laugh at all. I was actually saddened by the fact that it all turned out to be a failure (and that some scientists had screwed up and made themselves and even all scientists look bad). I for one was hoping that there WAS something to it, since the very complicated and difficult “hot” fusion experiments were going nowhere after decades of work. I can remember taking a field trip to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) as part of an atomic and nuclear physics course in the early 1960’s. Impressive to look at, but not making much progress. It’s now 20+ years after the cold fusion disaster and both hot and cold fusion are STILL making only slow and tentative progress.
My “ridicule” perhaps grows out of frustration—with the lack of progress and the distraction from the real goals we should be aiming for. Like a rapid ramp up in nuclear power—a technology that we DO understand and has a proven track record. That’s the “bridge” we need until we can convert to renewables or MAYBE make fusion work, which may be another 20 or more years down the road.
Talking about ducks, I CANNOT understand why so many people who are so excited about fusion are at the same time so negative about nuclear power. The fusion duck at present is a smoke and mirrors vision, while nuclear power duck is a walking , quacking, fat old guy who may poop a bit but IS ready to be served up for dinner. And when you feed him, he actually grows, rather than shrinks in size—-a metaphorical way of looking at fusion experiments that are net consumers of more energy that they produce.
Willful ignorance is the failure here.
OK, so some group of people set up their experiments to fail. They did not follow Pons and Fleischmanns’ instructions and came out guns blazing. (In a nutshell they did not load up the palladium enough.)
And you swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
And I am sick and tired of your sanctimonious labeling of me as a crank, when it is you who are inferior because you proclaim “The Holy Truth” from atop your dung heap.
Lift your game. Ad hominids are just plain rude and reflect poorly on your ancestry.
And as far as Cold Fusion being a conspiracy by Big Oil to keep burning fossil fuel, just think about that for a moment.
Free energy is Big Carbon’s worst nightmare. What would it have done to the petro-dollar and hence the USA’s position as the reserve currency of the world?
How would the Pentagon have reacted to every tin pot country getting Cold Fusion submarines.
On the contrary, what did happen is that the Powers That Be said,
“Kill It.”
” Kill it Now.”
When you are Top Dog you do not welcome change.
Wasn’t it Stalin who said that you must always advise your adverseries of the things you yourself are doing?
Arthur,
I hate to interrupt this wonderful conversation you’re having with yourself all over this thresd, but it’s not clear who this comment is directed at. Is it to me?, or to climatelurker?, or both of us?, or everyone on Crock?
Who is the “you” that is so “sanctimoniously labeling you as a crank”?
And is it not rather “sanctimonious” and an “ad hominem” for YOU to be calling anyone “inferior because they proclaim “The Holy Truth” from atop their dung heap” and that it “reflects poorly on their ancestry”?
And you used the term “ad hominID”, which has a different meaning than “ad hominEM”, although the context would appear to call for using the latter? Why?
Lastly, your quoting of Cicero—“Brevity is a great charm of eloquence” is rather confusing. IMO, your comments have all been rather brief, but they are confusing rather than eloquent. I am admittedly just a dumb old guy, but I’m having some difficulty trying to figure out what you’re saying to me (or whoever it is you’re speaking to).
Correction.
Wasn’t it Stalin who said that you must always accuse your adverseries of the things you yourself are doing?
Can’t resist.
Would that be like you coming on Crock and saying the things you’re saying? The weight of evidence indicates that is the case. For one example, telling people to “lift their game”, when it comes from someone whose game obviously needs lifting.