bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (03/29/89)
I don't know about you, but I find this one mind-boggling. -Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die ----------forwarded note---------- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 89 02:02:25 EST From: dsr (David Reiser) To: bzs Subject: History of the Human Race Somewhere near Arcturus, in a marketing firm of medium repute, a red light goes on on a large display panel... "Hey Okator, get this.. the third planet from ELV-916 just figured out fusion power. Gas up a probe and fill it with those combination sock deodorizer/bread toasters and send a salesman right down." ... (From the Wire Services) 'FUSION' NEWS 1. SCIENTISTS CLAIM SENSATIONAL SUCCESS IN FUSION EXPERIMENT NEW YORK (MARCH 23) - A British and an American scientist claimed Thursday they had found a simple way to create controlled nuclear fusion, the scientific Eldorado which governments have been devoting one billion dollars a year to find. Professor Martin Fleischmann, a British electrochemist, and Professor B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah, said they could create nuclear fusion at room temperature in a normal laboratory. Nuclear fusion is the awesome power released by the hydrogen bomb. Scientists have puzzled for four decades over how to keep nuclear fusion simmering so that it could peacefully heat water and generate electricity. ''Our indications are that the discovery will be relatively easy to make into a usable technology for generating heat and power,'' the two electrochemists said in a statement released by the University of Utah. If the Fleischmann-Pons experiment is confirmed, it is expected to open the door to a new research area and ultimately create an energy source that would be cheap, clean and almost inexhaustible. Pons heads the chemistry faculty at the University of Utah. Fleischmann comes from Southampton University in England. The two did their experiments with money from the University of Utah. In nuclear fusion, two light atomic nuclei are squeezed together until they form one heavier nucleus. At the same time energy is given off. The sun's energy is generated the same way. Scientists around the world have been set to find a safe method of nuclear fusion because it is expected to be environmentally clean compared to both oil burning and nuclear fission, or atom-splitting, the process that currently provides nuclear power. A british newspaper, the Financial Times, said Thursday worldwide expenditure on fusion research exceeded one billion dollars yearly and governments were becoming impatient with its apparent slow progress towards a commercial fusion reactor. Scientists have found it hugely difficult to create steady fusion, and have always assumed they would need to create temperatures of several million degrees Celsius to make it work. The fuel in a fusion reactor would be deuterium, or heavy water, a material which is found in seawater. In the new experiment, the heavy water surrounds two electrodes, one of platinum and the other of palladium. The fusion process takes place in the palladium electrode when an electric current is passed through the electrodes, the scientists said. The heat given off ''continues over long periods, is proportional to the volume of the electrode and is so large that it can only be attributed to a nuclear process,'' they said. =END= USA TODAY FUSION SUCCESS REPORTED: 2 scientists - including an American - Thursday reported that they successfully carried out nuclear fusion in a test tube. The Financial Times of London reports that the process has the potential to provide unlimited, inexpensive energy. The process fuses atoms instead of splitting them as current nuclear technology does. (For more, see special Fusion package below.) SPECIAL PACKAGE ON FUSION: EXPERIMENT WAS SIMPLE: 2 electrochemists have apparently done in a test tube what has not yet been achieved in gigantic nuclear research projects: Controlled nuclear fusion. The Financial Times of London reports that their work - if confirmed - goes a long way toward taming the nuclear forces powering the sun and the hydrogen bomb. NUCLEAR FUSION CLEAN ENERGY: Nuclear fusion releases energy by joining together light atoms. It has several advantages over nuclear fission - the process of splitting heavy atoms - which powers all current nuclear power stations: It's cleaner, producing little radioactive waste; its raw material - deuterium - is abundant in sea water; and fusion reactors are safer because the process shuts down automatically. EXPERIMENT DECEPTIVELY SIMPLE: The nuclear fusion experiments carried out by 2 scientists at the University of Utah are no more complex than the practical work done by typical chemistry undergraduates, The Financial Times of London reports. They use electrochemical techniques to achieve fusion of deuterium nuclei trapped inside an electrode made from palladium, a metal similar to platinum. RESEARCH IS EXCITING: Physicists find it hard to believe deuterium nuclei could be squeezed together tightly enough for fusion to occur as reported Thursday. But fusion experts at the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority take it seriously because professors Martin Fleischmann, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Stan Pons, are distinguished scientists with a successful record of research in electrochemistry. LOTS MORE WORK AHEAD: Professor Martin Fleischmann, one of the scientists reporting a controlled nuclear fusion experiment Thursday, said the door is open to a new era of research. He told The Financial Times of London: "Our indications are that the discovery will be reasonably easy to make into a usable technology for generating heat and power, but a lot more work is needed to prove its validity." -Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die There's nothing more terrifying to hardware vendors than satisfied customers. -Barry Shein, Software Tool & Die There's nothing more terrifying to hardware vendors than satisfied customers.
U1DF1@WVNVM.WVNET.EDU ("John Neubert") (04/08/89)
Has anyone heard anything more current on the "Cold Fusion" issue? Today's paper stated that some MIT researchers, using the same methods, were unable to replicate the results. However, the two original researchers have published and stick by their findings. I agree most enthusiastically with Barry that this would represent one of humankinds greatest breakthroughs. The harnessing of fusion energy, along with possible developments in "Warm Superconductivity", micro-robotics, genetic engineering, AI (all its branches), etc, etc, are leading us somewhere. W H E R E? Politicians obviously aren't concerned with the implications of what we are fast approaching the ability to do with the toys we're creating. I firmly believe if mankind makes it into the 21st century, we will have the tools for a "Golden Age" -- or the Leap -- or "Childhood's End -- or whatever one wants to call it. The questions will not be technology, or food, or wants of any kind... but truly social issues of "getting along with our fellow beings". I really do appreciate that this all sounds like I was jussut watching the original version of Lost Horizon. But, think about what one major development in each of these fields would mean. Fortunately, due to 100 mip desktop machines and super-networks of the not too distant future, the tools will be available to assist researchers in making the breakthroughs. All the pieces seem to be coming together at just the right time.
janssen@titan.sw.mcc.com (Bill Janssen) (04/12/89)
For those on the net, the newsgroup 'alt.fusion' is carrying the latest fusion rumors and speculations. Latest, of course, is that groups at Texax A&M and Georgia Tech have produced results similar to those seen at U Utah, ie nuclear by-products with net gain of energy from palladium electrodes in a deuterium/lithium bath. Bill