Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!labrea!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!shafey
From: shafey@athena.mit.edu (Matt Shafe')
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: UPI News
Summary: 3 late articles from UPI in case your local paper didn't print.(long)
Keywords: News, Fusion in Earth, Materials for Fusion, palladium prepration, Oregon Experiments
Message-ID: <10962@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 30 Apr 89 07:10:51 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: shafey@athena.mit.edu (Matt Shafe')
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 222


I found these UPI articles on another computer news source.  I thought
I might post them on alt.fusion in case your local newspaper did not
run these stories in the past few days.  (Three articles)
 
COLD FUSION MAY BE TAKING PLACE WITHIN EARTH, OTHER PLANETS, RESEARCHER SAYS 
 
WASHINGTON (APRIL 26) UPI - A Brigham Young scientist, who claims to have
created room temperature nuclear fusion at the same time as another Utah team,
said Wednesday the process may be occurring naturally on Earth and other
planets. 
 
In a long-awaited paper published in the journal Nature, Steven E. Jones and
colleagues reported producing fusion at room temperature using a device similar
to University of Utah researchers' much-publicized ''fusion-in-a-flask''
experiment. 
 
Jones emphasized that his devices, which emitted the high-speed neutrons
characteristic of a nuclear reaction, did not generate the large amount of
excess heat reported by the Utah team. 
 
But the Brigham Young researcher added: ''The discovery of cold nuclear fusion
... opens the possibility, at least, of a new path to fusion energy.'' 
 
Jones said he decided to explore the possibility of creating cold fusion after
learning that a type of radioactive hydrogen often produced by fusion is found
in volcanoes and other geological hot spots on the Earth. 
 
Other evidence pointing to naturally occurring cold fusion includes Jupiter,
which radiates about twice as much heat as it receives from the sun, and metals
that contain high concentrations of radioactive hydrogen, Jones said. 
 
Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and his colleague, Martin Fleischmann of
England's Southampton University, recently withdrew a paper outlining their
controversial fusion process from the magazine. The researchers said they did
not have time to make requested revisions. 
 
The Brigham Young and Utah teams were aware of each group's research and had
originally planned to submit their papers together. But the scientists had a
falling out after the University of Utah team announced its discovery at a
March 23 news conference that rocked the scientific world. 
 
[... Deleted Irrelevant Journalistic Verbage...]
 
Pons and Fleischmann have touted their fusion process as a possible source of
cheap, safe energy, and Wednesday asked a congressional committee for $25
million to help commercialize their findings. 
 
At the same hearing, Jones warned lawmakers to be cautious about funneling
large sums of money into the fledgling field in hopes of quick returns. 
 
When an electrical current is run through the jar, the deuterium atoms crowd
into an electrode's lattice structure - where the researchers believe fusion
occurs. 
 
The Utah team used palladium for the active electrode, while Jones used either
palladium or titanium. The Brigham Young water also was laced with eight metal
salts ''typical of volcanic hot springs.'' 
 
Using a neutron counting device he designed himself, Jones said he detected an
average rate of two ''signal neutrons'' per hour - a rate that he said
indicates nuclear fusion is taking place at room temperature. 
 
Drawing again on the natural model, Jones speculated electricity is probably
not needed to trigger this type of fusion. 
 
''We have begun to explore the use of ion implantation and elevated pressures
and temperatures, mimicking geological conditions,'' he wrote. 
 
In an editorial in Nature, physicists James Cohen and John Davies said they
were not that convinced atoms were actually fusing in either the Brigham Young
and Utah experiments, saying the process ''could be but a distant cousin'' of
fusion. 
 
=END= 
 
 
MATERIALS CRITICAL TO COLD FUSION SUCCESS, SCIENTISTS SAY 
 
SAN DIEGO (APRIL 27) UPI - Scientists who have replicated results from the
controversial Utah ''fusion-in-a-flask'' experiment said Thursday other
researchers may have failed because of mistakes in the materials they used. 
 
Stanford University and University of Arizona researchers told other leading
scientists they were able to reproduce key parts of the Utah process, which
supposedly created nuclear fusion at room temperature, because they used
specially-treated palladium electrodes. 
 
The Stanford team, among the first researchers to replicate unpublished
findings announced March 23 by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, also
credited their success to the use of a dry-nitrogen atmosphere which assured
the purity of ''heavy water,'' water composed of oxygen and a form of hydrogen
known as deuterium. 
 
''We have enough evidence that if the heavy water becomes contaminated by
(ordinary) water, the effects decrease substantially or even go away,'' said
Dr. Robert Huggins, who directed the Stanford study. 
 
Dr. Johann Rafelski of the University of Arizona, one of the authors of a
fusion paper published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, said,
''There's something in the palladium we're using that makes it work.'' 
 
Pons, a University of Utah scientist, and Fleischmann, his former professor now
at the University of Southampton, England, claim they created nuclear ''fusion
in a flask'' at room temperature by running a small electric current for long
periods of time through a palladium electrode. 
 
The two scientists Wednesday appeared on Capitol Hill to ask for $25 million in
federal funds for a center devoted to cold-fusion research. 
 
Huggins and his colleagues said that, using an apparatus similar to that in the
Utah experiments, they also produced large amounts of heat that could not be
explained by conventional theories. 
 
But the Stanford team stopped short of claiming they had achieved nuclear
fusion at room temperature without releasing hazardous radiation. 
 
''We're not telling you that we know what it is. All we know is that there are
large effects and the large effects are much different than any chemical
reaction we have heard of,'' said Huggins. 
 
Speaking at the annual meeting of the Materials Research Society, the
researchers for the first time spoke openly about their methods and fielded
questions, often hostile in tone, before an audience of 1,600 scientists. 
 
The vast majority seemed skeptical of Pons and Fleischmann's cold-fusion
claims. One of these was Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, who announced he has
submitted a paper to the journal Nature detailing how the heat release might
have been produced by conventional atomic bonding common to all metals. 
 
Several scientists asked the Stanford team why they had not measured any helium
4, a common byproduct of nuclear fusion that should be present if the
Pons-Fleischmann claim is correct. 
 
Huggins said his team only began its efforts to replicate the Utah experiment
in early April and added, ''We haven't gotten to it (helium measurement). We
just haven't had the time. 
 
''This is one of the things we intend to be doing in the near future to try and
sort out what's happening,'' he said. 
 
Rafelski, whose 3-year collaboration with Steven E. Jones of Brigham Young
University produced the first published findings of cold fusion in Wednesday's
Nature, said his work recorded emission of excess neutrons, indicating that
nuclear fusion did take place. 
 
''We believe nuclear fusion occurred ... but our (energy production) results
were very much more modest that Pons and Fleischmann's,'' said Rafelski. 
 
The key to the fusion experiment ''could be in the preparation of the palladium
electrode, in the nature of the material itself. When that is better
understood, even our process could be substantially improved, said Rafelski. 
 
Like Jones, who Wednesday urged Congress to exercise caution in funding fusion
research, Rafelski disagreed with the notion that cold-fusion energy could soon
provide an inexhaustible source of cheap, safe energy. 
 
''Looking into the future, it is possible that even our small fusion rate, when
properly understood, could be taken up to a level which could make some form of
application possible,'' Rafelski said. 
 
''But I wouldn't go to the extent of saying we can build a cold-fusion nuclear
reactor in the next few years. What I am saying is, do not as yet sell your oil
wells,'' he added. 
 
=END= 
 
 
OREGON RESEARCHERS MAY HAVE DUPLICATED COLD FUSION EXPERIMENT 
 
PORTLAND, OR (APRIL 28) UPI - A Portland State University researcher said
Friday he may have duplicated a cold fusion experiment in which University of
Utah scientists produced energy from a chemical reaction involving heavy water.
 
Physics professor John Dash said he and graduate student Patrick Keefe got a
one second burst of energy that was at least 100 times larger than the amount
of energy put into the experiment. 
 
However, Dash and Keefe were cautious in their claims. Dash said they wanted to
duplicate the test before concluding that they had reproduced a fusion
experiment that is causing a world-wide scientific sensation. 
 
''I don't have any proof that it is nuclear fusion. But I do have proof that
there was a large burst of energy that exceeded the energy when we closed the
switch,'' said Dash, a metallurgist. 
 
''This is something new in my experience. I've been doing experiments similar
to this since about 1960.'' 
 
It was the first attempt in Oregon to reproduce work done by B. Stanley Pons of
the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southhampton
in England, whose work raised the possiblity of producing cheap energy from
something as simple as sea water. 
 
The Utah experiment was announced March 23, Dash and Keefe performed their
experiment last Monday. 
 
Dash said he used materials similar to the original experiment - a palladium
electrode immersed in a small beaker containing heavy water. He said he mixed
an electrolyte with the water to increase its conductivity. 
 
But he declined to describe the electrolyte because it might have patent
possibilities. 
 
Dash said when an electrical current was applied, the needle on a temperature
recorder in the liquid solution jumped from 21 degrees to 27 1/2 degrees
Celsius (about 70 to 81 degrees Fehrenheit) in one second. 
 
The temperature rise in the solution was far greater than can be accounted for
by the electrical current, he said. 
 
''I conservatively said more than 100 times,'' he said. ''It could have been
much more than that.'' 
 
A microscopic examination of the electrode showed evidence of melting
consistent with a high energy surge, he said. ''It definitely exceeded the
melting point.'' 
 
Dash said he was trying to assemble materials for another experiment. 
 
=END=