Cold fusion precursor to low energy nuclear reactions

Cold Fusion – Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions SB Krivit, New Energy Times, San Rafael, CA, USA & 2009 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved Introduction On 23 March 1989, electrochemists M Fleischmann and S Pons claimed in a press conference at the University of Utah that they had achieved nuclear fusion in a tabletop chemistry experiment Since then, evidence of fusion in what is now called low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research has grown only slightly stronger Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was responsible for their experimental results is still unproved On the contrary, LENR experiments have continued to demonstrate increasingly convincing evidence for some sort of nuclear process or processes – though not necessarily fusion – year after year The suggestion that LENR research represented a new form of thermonuclear fusion has caused significant confusion The two fields, thermonuclear fusion and LENR research, and their respective sets of phenomena are very different Therefore, direct comparisons between the two are irrelevant Thermonuclear Fusion Thermonuclear fusion has been well understood since the 1930s Two of the pioneering researchers were Ernest Rutherford from Cambridge and Niels Bohr from Denmark When two deuterium nuclei are brought together with sufficient energy to overcome their electromagnetic repulsion, the strong force takes effect and causes a fusion reaction Slightly less than 50% of the time, this reaction branch occurs: D ỵ D>3He (0.82 MeV) ỵ n (2.45 MeV) Also, slightly less than 50% of the time, this reaction branch occurs: D ỵ D>T (1.01 MeV) ỵ p (3.02 MeV) And with less than 1% probability, a fusion reaction results in this branch: D þ D>4He (0.08 MeV) þ gamma ray (23.77 MeV) At the University of Utah press conference, M Fleischmann and S Pons asserted that they had attained nuclear fusion, but they were more conservative in their preliminary note, in which they asked whether a novel fusion process could be responsible Also in their note, they asked whether ‘‘the bulk of the energy release is due to an hitherto unknown nuclear process or processes.’’ The most significant initial argument against the hypothesis of thermonuclear fusion was based largely on theoretical grounds: the expected neutron emissions were not present at the expected rates That M Fleischmann and S Pons survived was proof of a negligible neutron flux relative to the energy produced in their experiment In the years that followed, the most significant initial argument for the hypothesis of a new kind of fusion process was based largely on the somewhat quantitative correlation of excess heat and generation of helium-4 In the last two decades, three prominent laboratories reported such general correlations They are SRI International, the US Navy China Lake laboratory, and the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment (ENEA) laboratory in Italy This work, performed in 1995, 1991, and 2002, respectively, showed a wide range of energy values for the helium-4 from 22.85 to 103 MeV – that evolved at the same time as the excess heat Of 16 values from these groups, only one – the 22.85 value from SRI International – was close to the value expected from the third branch of deuterium– deuterium thermonuclear fusion, 23.77 MeV The current rejection of thermonuclear fusion as the mechanism for the observed phenomena is also supported by a variety of other differences between the experimental results seen in LENR research and thermonuclear fusion For these reasons, the term fusion was presumptive and was and still is highly speculative The empirical results suggest, as M Fleischmann and S Pons speculated, a novel mechanism Exactly what that mechanism is may be understood and explained in the coming years In addition to the heat-producing reactions discovered by M Fleischmann and S Pons, the field encompasses normal hydrogen and transmutation reactions that clearly are not the result of thermonuclear fusion processes – all the more reason to refer to these nuclear processes collectively as LENRs rather than ‘cold fusion’ The LENR term, however, does not imply that the potential energy output from such reactions is low Rather, the term helps distinguish this research from the field of high-energy nuclear physics, which involves the use of high temperatures or energetic devices such as particle accelerators and magnetic confinement fusion machines 2004 US Department of Energy ‘Review of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions’ In 2004, the Department of Energy (DoE) conducted another review of the subject formerly called cold fusion The 2004 scientific review was called ‘Review of 255