Foreword: I gave Ric Werme permission to do this essay. I don’t have any doubt that the original Cold Fusion research was seriously flawed. That said, this recent new development using a different process is getting some interest, so let’s approach it skeptically to see what merit it has, if any. – Anthony
Cold fusion isn’t usual fare for WUWT, at best it’s not a focus here, at worst it’s sorry science, and we talk about that enough already. However, it never has died, and this week there’s news about it going commercial. Well, it won’t be available for a couple years or so, but the excitement comes from a device that takes 400 watts of electrical power in and produces 12,000 watts of heat out.
Most people regard cold fusion as a black eye on science. It’s credited with the advent of science by press release and its extraordinary claims were hard to reproduce. Yet, unlike the polywater fiasco of the 1970s, cold fusion has never been explained away and several experiments have been successfully reproduced. Neutrons, tritium, and other products kept some researchers working long after others had given up. Even muons (from Svensmark’s Chilling Stars) have been suggested as a catalyst. Everyone agrees that theoretical help would provide a lot of guidance, but for something that flies in the face of accepted theory, little help has come from that.
Grandiose claims of changing the world have been lowered to “show me something that replaces my water heater.” Attempts at scaling up the experiments that could be reproduced all failed. Even had they worked, a lot of systems used palladium. There’s not enough of that to change the world.
As media attention waned, the field stayed alive and new avenues explored. Some people active in the early days of Pons & Fleishman’s press conference are still tracking research, and research has continued around the world. There are publications and journals, and conferences and research by the US Navy. And controversy about a decision to not publish the proceedings of a recent conference.
The term “Cold Fusion” has been deprecated, as focus remains on generating heat, and heat to run a steam turbine efficiently is definitely not cold. Nor is it the 30 million degrees that “Hot Fusion” needs. The preferred terms now are LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) and CANR (Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions). I’ll call it cold fusion.
I keep a Google alert for news, and check in from time to time, and last week came across notice of a press conference about a cold fusion system that is going commercial. The reports beforehand and the reports afterward said little useful, but some details are making it out. Whatever is going on is interesting enough to pay attention to, and since WUWT has developed a good record for breaking news, it’s worth a post.
The bottom line is that Italian scientists Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi have a unit they claim takes in 400 watts of electricity and, with the assistance of nickel-hydrogen fusion, puts out 12 kilowatts of heat. Okay, that’s interesting and the power amplification doesn’t require some of the extremely careful calorimetry early experiments needed. The elements involved are affordable and if it works, things become interesting. (There are undisclosed “additives” to consider too.) The reactor is going commercial in the next few years, which may or may not mean it’s ready.
Several details have not been disclosed, but there will be a paper out on Monday. Dr. Rossi reports:
Yes, I confirm that Monday Jan 24 the Bologna University Report will be published on the Journal Of Nuclear Physics. I repeat that everybody will be allowed to use it in every kind of publication, online, paper, written, spoken, without need of any permission. It will be not put on it the copyright.
Major caveat – the Journal Of Nuclear Physics is Rossi’s blog. Peer review is:
All the articles published on the Journal Of Nuclear Physics are Peer Reviewed. The Peer Review of every paper is made by at least one University Physics Professor.
So it’s not like they’re getting published in Nature, Scientific American, or even a reputable journal. Still, it ought to be a welcome addition.
The mechanism involved is claimed to be fusion between nickel and hydrogen. This is a bit unusual, as the typical claims are for reactions involving deuterium (proton + one neutron) and tritium (proton + two neutrons) with the gas filtering into a palladium lattice. In this case, it’s reacting with the substrate.
Nickel has several isotopes that naturally occur, the belief is that all participate in the reactions. In http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/files/Rossi-Focardi_paper.pdf discusses finding copper, which has one more proton than nickel, and various isotopes that do not occur in natural nickel. It also observes that gamma radiation is not observed while the reactor was running. Comments in other articles make suggestions about why that is. Apparently they see a short burst of gamma waves when the apparatus is shutdown.
Rossi leaves several hints in his comments, e.g. instability when the pressure of the hydrogen is increased, including explosions. (The commercial unit is designed to need enough electrical power so it can be shut down reliably.)
The best summary of the calorimetry involved is by Jed Rothwell who has been involved since the early days. He notes:
The test run on January 14 lasted for 1 hour. After the first 30 minutes the outlet flow became dry steam. The outlet temperature reached 101°C. The enthalpy during the last 30 minutes can be computed very simply, based on the heat capacity of water (4.2 kJ/kgK) and heat of vaporization of water (2260 kJ/kg):
Mass of water 8.8 kg
Temperature change 87°C
Energy to bring water to 100°C: 87°C*4.2*8.8 kg = 3,216 kJ
Energy to vaporize 8.8 kg of water: 2260*8.8 = 19,888 kJ
Total: 23,107 kJ
Duration 30 minutes = 1800 seconds
Power 12,837 W, minus auxiliary power ~12 kW
There were two potential ways in which input power might have been measured incorrectly: heater power, and the hydrogen, which might have burned if air had been present in the cell.
The heater power was measured at 400 W. It could not have been much higher that this, because it is plugged into an ordinary wall socket, which cannot supply 12 kW. Even if a wall socket could supply 12 kW, the heater electric wire would burn.
During the test runs less than 0.1 g of hydrogen was consumed. 0.1 g of hydrogen is 0.1 mole, which makes 0.05 mole of water. The heat of formation of water is 286 kJ/mole, so if the hydrogen had been burned it would have produced less than 14.3 kJ.
What should we make of all this? In a skeptical group like this, some healthy skepticism is warranted. On the other hand, the energy release is impressive and very hard to explain chemically or as physical storage in a crystal lattice. It will be interesting to see how things develop.
Thanks! This is getting less soft. I mean, if a company is getting heat on that from the past three years, they are unlikely to be wasting their money. Let’s wait for details.
We enjoy the fruits of the the industrial revolution and the information revolution…what we desperately need now is the energy revolution. How I wish our young people directed their intellect and energy toward physics instead of Facebook-ing, Guitar Hero-ing and Halo-ing. So it goes.
If you’ll tolerate a brief shameless plug, my playful thoughts on this theme are embedded in: Hartz String Theory.
Didn’t see it mentioned or cited, so, below is what caught my attention of this subject a few years back:
ANOMALOUS EFFECTS IN DEUTERATED SYSTEMS
ABSTRACT
To: Grey Lensman says:
“Thats a religious diktat not science, try telling that to the universe that works.”
LOL. Loved your quote.
In fact, the Big Bang theory was created by a Catholic priest,
Georges Lemaître. AND, the Big Bang theory is simply a reworded idea taken from the Bible version of God creating the universe. That’s why the Catholic Church went along with it.
To: Dave Springer
I have no desire to quibble over whether the converted mass comes from the nucleus or the electrons in an exothermic chemical reaction. So, I will change it to ‘atomic energy’. My main point still holds. ‘Matter’ being something from the ATOM, is being converted into energy. That, at its heart, is not purely ‘chemical’ in nature. It is something else.
To: _Jim
Cite references?
E=MC^2 Einstein’s famous equation. Look it up. It’s all over the internet.
The E in there, ‘Energy’ can only exist, can only come from the conversion of matter (mass) into energy. For example, take the Hoover Dam…in the falling water driving the generator, there is some mass (matter) is being converted into energy somewhere in the process.
Even within the human body, there is an ‘atomic transformation’ of some matter into energy. We are all walking around ‘atomic reactors’….
I don’t think you addressed my question; already familiar with the ‘elementaries’ as most here are … but thank you anyway for what was probably an earlier statement from a side of ‘pseudoscience’ …
.
And this:
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ChienCConanelectr.pdf
Abstract:
I noticed some skeptics refs to COE and a seeming oversight regarding the need for this anomally to maintain a thermal level near the disassociation level of h2- Early on Mills made remarks about “ashless chemistry”, Lyne and Moller posited an oscillation between H1 & H2 and we knew there was some unexplained thermal anomaloies going all the way back to Langmuir. My point is that an interim force may be responsible for the nuclear reactions. Naudts suggested the hydrino was actually relativistic hydrogen and if you assume the Casimir geometry is responsible for this relativistic environment you have the basis for Maxwells demon on a scale even smaller than Wesley Bruce mentioned in an earlier comment above. I would posit the underlying basis leading to the nuclear reactions is actually relativistic chemistry – that the changing of Casimir geometry equals changes in energy density which opposes the translation of h2 but not h1. Effectively allowing Gas law and energy supression to discount the thermal energy needed to disassociate h2 below the level released upon association. Not in violation of COE but rather a practical variation on
Maxwell’s demon to harvest the chaotic energy behind gas law. Since gas law is built on Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle this thermal energy is constantly replenished.
Note Mills Rayney nickel can be considered an inverse form of these nano powders and is of the smae Casimir geometry.
JDN says:
January 23, 2011 at 9:47 am
“All you do to prove your case is hook a steam turbine to the output and make it self-sustaining. The fact that they come before the public yet again without doing it suggests that it can’t be done and that they are frauds. I would love for this stuff to work, but, these guys don’t seem to have anything but an opportunity for more funding.”
Steam turbines require superheated dry steam at very high pressure. My understanding at this point is that the catalytic substrate is destroyed by high temperature so this thing right now can only provide low-quality heat i.e. above the boiling point of water but not hot enough to drive a steam turbine. Hence the prototype they claim has been running continuously for 2-3 years is doing nothing more than heating a building which is one of very few practical applications for low quality heat.
Just as an aside if low quality heat were usable for power generation everybody and his brother would have solar hot water heaters on their roof the low-quality heat of which would be used to drive a steam turbine generator to provide electricity for the house. In reality the only use that hot water is good for is a pre-heater between the cold water supply and the inlet of a conventional electric or natural gas hot water heater and only then in the right climate. I had solar water heaters on the roof of my home in southern California back in the 1980’s and they did work well enough to lower my electric bill enough to pay for themselves over the course of 5 years or so.
Domenic says:
January 23, 2011 at 10:30 am
To: Dave Springer
“I have no desire to quibble over whether the converted mass comes from the nucleus or the electrons in an exothermic chemical reaction.”
Great because it’s not a quibble. Chemistry is all about bonds between atoms. Atomic energy is all about bonds between particles in the nucleus. This is Chemistry 101 stuff. You being in denial of the difference between chemistry and nuclear physics doesn’t change fact that you’re dead wrong. It just makes you look like you never passed a high school chemistry course. If you want to continue that way it’s immaterial to me.
The Hoover dam uses mechanical energy conversion – potential to kinetic – one form of energy to another form. Gravity is the essential force involved in this conversion. This is not a nuclear reaction or even an atomic reaction – it involves no conversion of mass into energy. Endo and exothermic chemical reactions are not “nuclear” and the human body is not a “nuclear reactor” it is a chemical reactor that converts food materials (carbs and proteins) into smaller chemical building blocks (using oxygen) that the body can use. E=MC2 specifically relates to nuclear reactions where energy is produced from the annihilation of matter.
And, last in this short series of posts, I would be remiss in not mentioning:
Link to Vol. 1 (and 2) of this paper:
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/biblio/IMAGING.HTML
Partial foreward:
.
Irving Langmuir coined the phrase pathological science in a talk in 1953.
Pathological science, as defined by Langmuir, is a psychological process in which a scientist, originally conforming to the scientific method, unconsciously veers from that method, and begins a pathological process of wishful data interpretation (see the Observer-expectancy effect, and cognitive bias). Some characteristics of pathological science are:
The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
There are claims of great accuracy.
Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.
Langmuir never intended the term to be rigorously defined; it was simply the title of his talk on some examples of “weird science”. As with any attempt to define the scientific endeavor, examples and counterexamples can always be found.
The above is quoted verbatim from the Wikipedia article on pathological science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_science
Wikipedia also has a detailed article on cold fusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion
You will find there information inconsistent with the claims of the cold fusion buffs who left comments on this thread. Sorry, Dave Springer, chemical reactions are not nuclear reactions in any sense of the term as nothing at the subatomic level changes in the course of a chemical reaction.
Farther out on the lunatic fringe of pathological science you will find the Zero Point Energy crowd:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy#Claims_in_pseudoscience They are good for a laugh.
This is very funny, for I was just idling, thinking about from where, ultimately, comes the energy that dams generate, and as usual, it comes from the sun — ultimately. Something, the water, has to fall through the gravity gradient, but how did it got up there in the first place? The sun got it there.
There are many questions that need to be addressed.
1. According to the information given we are told that the maximum input power is 400W. According to the system used especially in Europe it is not uncommon to have available at the wall socket 250V at 16A or 4,000 kVA.
2. This experiment ran for an hour and all 8.8kg of water was converted to steam. This seems unlikely in any system.
3. What were the conditions of the test? Was ambient at 25C? What was the pressure?
4. What was the pressure of the steam at the output? How was it determined to be dry steam? Since the steam was at 101C this is very close to the transition temp, and would call the “dry” statement into question. Also conditions within the system would affect the energy of vaporization for water, greatly affecting the results.
5. I saw no evaluation of the other possible chemical reactions that could have caused this heat rise. Were all materials accounted for? Would re-running the experiment after replenishing system with water give the same results? Do you have to replace the electrodes after every run?
6. How do you stop the process? If this is as energetic as your results suggest, one wonders how this would be controlled. Especially since you vaporized 8.8kg of water once you reached 100C in 30 minutes. This represents a factor of two increase in the rate of energy delivered. So what was so important about 100C? Should not the energy delivered be constant? If not why?
7. Also I find it concerning that we are expressing everything in watts. We are dealing in energy. To convert to watts only makes it more confusing. This is a thermodynamic evaluation. Joules in Joules out. Simple and concise. The only time that is is appropriate to deal with energy flow rates are to evaluate the various conditions at certain phases of the experiment.
There are way too many open holes in this for me to even consider it a viable option. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I want to see conditions, materials, complete experimental methodology, and reproducibility before I would see this as viable.
The question I have with this topic has always been, how much energy and in what form was it stored in these special substrates? Could it simply be the rapid release of energy from a metal-hydride battery?
Josualdo says:
January 23, 2011 at 10:22 am
“This gets me jumpy. I mean, I’ve heard about neutron bombs at the end of the cold war. Then I also read that this gadget needs enough energy for a “safe shutdown” or whatever. Should I calm down, or not?”
I think calm is in order. By safe shut-down I think they mean no damage to the device in the event the load is taken away and the unit heats up enough to damage it. From what I understand of their claims at this point is that the apparatus can’t avoid damage to itself if it gets much hotter than the boiling point of water. That’s a big limitation as temperatures in range of boiling water is low grade heat that isn’t useful for much except heating a building, taking a hot shower, or washing clothes and dishes.
Dave Springer @ur momisugly 9:44 – corresct!
Your earlier description filled my nostagict brain with images of the first auto-mobiles – the chap in the open coupe, with long jacket, cap, goggles one stick in his right hand, and behind, the wonderous steam stack billowing forth water vapour…..
Ahhhh…
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=360
Maybe a running 1MW powerplant will make it easier to belive this?
Andrea Rossi
January 23rd, 2011 at 10:49 AM
Dear Mr Giorgio Roncolato:
The volume of the reactor is 1 liter.
If you read carefully the report you find all yuo are asking for.
In any case, soon we will have operative reactors of 1 MW at work 24 hours per day.
This will be our next public demo.
Warm regards,
A.R.
“7. Also I find it concerning that we are expressing everything in watts. We are dealing in energy. To convert to watts only makes it more confusing. This is a thermodynamic evaluation. Joules in Joules out. Simple and concise. The only time that is is appropriate to deal with energy flow rates are to evaluate the various conditions at certain phases of the experiment.”
Nuclear power plants are rated in watts. People understand how much useful power is in a watt like for instance a 100-watt light bulb or a 1000watt blow dryer. Some might even know that one horsepower is about 750watts so a 25kw electric vehicle motor is about 33 horsepower. Joules are for physicists. Watts, BTUs, and horsepower are for laymen. We’re mostly laymen here including me. I have difficulty relating joules to real world applications but have little problem with watts, BTUs, and horsepower although I don’t care for converting between those either and prefer my motor and engine ratings in horsepower, furnaces and air conditioners in BTUs, and electrical appliances in watts.
Josualdo,
Interesting point. Most of the energy in the water driving the Hoover dam did come from the Sun, however, some comes from tectonic plate upwelling and the evaporation of water from various human activities as well as volcanic action, etc. Taking your point one step further, this energy originates from a source that formed the Sun and the entire Universe, for that matter. You could say that the Hoover dam is driven by the Big Bang. But, where did that energy come from?
Sal Minella says:
January 23, 2011 at 10:56 am
“The Hoover dam uses mechanical energy conversion – potential to kinetic – one form of energy to another form. Gravity is the essential force involved in this conversion. This is not a nuclear reaction or even an atomic reaction – it involves no conversion of mass into energy. Endo and exothermic chemical reactions are not “nuclear” and the human body is not a “nuclear reactor” it is a chemical reactor that converts food materials (carbs and proteins) into smaller chemical building blocks (using oxygen) that the body can use. E=MC2 specifically relates to nuclear reactions where energy is produced from the annihilation of matter.”
1. Gravity only exists by virtue of mass as far as is known. No mass, no gravity.
2. The human body releases ‘heat’ in addition to transforming atoms into various molecules. Any release of ‘heat’ is a mass energy conversion.
Unless you wish to deny that your own body releases ‘heat’?…in which case you would be ‘dead’. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
I know that E=MC^2 is an alien idea to most people, difficult to get ones arms around. It requires much thought. But its reality cannot be denied.
Sometimes you have to step back and really look closely at what nature is showing you, and not impose artificial constructs on it.
Frank Znidarsic has a theory which connects palladium-based cold fusion to sonofusion and Podklentov’s work.
IMO, if this tech becomes stable, not only will it enable mankind to lift ALL of us out of poverty, but it would then release the true potential of oil. Instead of wasting it in 16-30% effeciencies of the ICM, the potential for drug prices to drop, food production to go up, better, lighter plastics, etc. would finally be unleashed.
Bring it on! I want to live long enough to see humanity evolve into the Egg-Heads of older science-fiction!
Ed Zuiderwijk says:
January 23, 2011 at 8:12 am
This is of course total bunkum. Also the attempt to explain it (read the pdf article) is
junk science. The binding energy per nucleon is at its highest for the elements Fe, Cobalt Nickel. The reaction Ni+p -> Cu is therefore endothermic. Sorry folks, but this paper is clearly due for publication on April 1st.
Of course it could be bunkum. The paper also looks like junk science. But the reaction described, if the Coulomb barrier is overcome somehow and energy released is converted to lattice excitations (phonons) instead of gamma rays, could work.
It is definitely not true it would be endothermic. Just consider isotopic masses:
1H: 1.0078, nucleus is a proton (p)
58Ni: 57.9354 + p = 59Cu:58.9395 (0.0037) – decays further
60Ni: 59.9308 + p = 61Cu:60.9335 (0.0051) – decays further
61Ni: 60.9311 + p = 62Cu:61.9326 (0.0063) – decays further
62Ni: 61.9284 + p = 63Cu:62.9296 (0.0066) – stable
64Ni: 63.928 + p = 65Cu:64.9278 (0.0080) – stable
If a proton is added to (x)Ni, it is transformed to (x+1)Cu and the sum of isotopic masses of H and Ni is greater than that of the resulting Cu for each stable isotope of Nickel (excess mass in parentheses). That excess mass is released as energy during the reaction, in the form of gamma rays under normal circumstances.
Therefore the claimed reactions are at least exothermic.
Brian Josephson says:
January 23, 2011 at 2:33 am
Bravo, Dr. Josephson! There is indeed a lot more to the Fleischman and Pons story than appears in the standard derisory accounts of their unwanted brush with fame and notoriety. Accepted Science tries to explain phenomena according to the existing standard accounts, and where there is no standard account, the response is often to try to hide or ignore mysterious phenomena, or ostracize those who investigate these areas. An example is Barbara McClintock, who discovered the controlling mechanisms of genes in maize, but felt obliged to stop publishing her work because it was receiving a bewildered and hostile reception, and she feared alienation from her peers and scientific mainstream.
Yet generally these fringes of the unexplained or unexplainable are the loci for ‘scientific revolutions’ and the emergence of new paradigms, if I may use the now-hackneyed phraseology of Kuhn. My own attitude is not skepticism, exactly – I don’t understand what is going on well enough – but cautious interest.