The Political Hot Potato of Cold Fusion

[nocompromises]

For the past several months I've been researching the claims of Italian inventor Andrea Rossi, who has developed the world's first practical cold fusion device. I'm now 99.9% convinced it is legitimate. There is always room for some tiny bit of doubt, but I do not think any reasonable doubt exists at this point. It has been tested by multiple scientists at the University of Bologna in Italy, scientists from the Universities of Stockholm and Uppsala in Sweden, and several others. Every test has been successful, and demonstrated extremely large outputs of energy in the form of heated water. The output is many times the input (always a minimum of 6 times the output to every unit of input). For example, in one 18 hour test at the University of Bologna over an eighteen hour period the device consumed an average of 80 constant watts, but produced at a minimum a constant 15 kilowatts of power in the form of heated water.

The technology utilizes nano nickel powder (which increases the surface area of the nickel) that has been enriched in two stable isotopes of nickel (Ni62 and Ni64). The nano-nickel powder is then combined with a patent pending catalyst which is not consumed in the reaction. The nickel powder and catalyst is placed in a small reactor vessel along with pressurized hydrogen gas. The contents are heated to about 450C and a fusion reaction starts to occur. Small amounts of low level gamma rays are produced, but they are completely shielded by 2cm of lead. The result is a huge production of thermal energy (which can be converted to electricity) and the production of transmutation products (such as copper) in the reactor vessel.

It is important to note....

1) Only small amounts of nickel and hydrogen are used. One hundred grams of nickel and one hundred grams of hydrogen can fuel the reactor 24/7 for a minimum of six months!

2) The nickel, hydrogen, and catalysts are all very cheap. Basically, instead of burning thousands of dollars worth of oil every six months you would utilize a few dollars worth of nickel and hydrogen.

3) No nuclear materials are put into the device and no nuclear waste is produced.

4) In the worst case scenario, if a natural disaster struck and a reactor was cracked the hydrogen would vent and the fusion reactions would instantly cease. The technology is completely and totally safe.

5) The reactor vessels are tiny. Either .05 liters or 1 liter. Enormous amounts of energy are produced by small devices.

This technology is poised to take the world by storm. Currently, a one megawatt plant is to be opened in Xanthi, Greece this October. It will be used by Defkalion Green Technologies Inc. to power a plant that will produce 300,000 E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) units a year. Another one is planned to be opened in the USA in November.

This is going to become a HUGE political issue. It represents a total solution to the energy crisis. Greece has already given full certifications and authorizations to Defkalion to manufacture, distribute, and sell units in Greece.

Will the USA quickly adopt this technology or not?

That is a question that politicians will have to answer.

I think it would be FANTASTIC if Ron Paul were the FIRST politician to address this technology, and insist the following....

1) All subsidies to oil companies and alternative energy companies be dropped.

2) The military should research the technology to ensure a viable national defense here in the USA. Unlike hot fusion technology that the government has spent billions funding (with no results) cold fusion research can take place for 1/1000th the money. To show he supports government transparency, all military research on the technology (to provide mobile power sources for outposts on our borders and military bases) would be shared with the private sector.

3) He would not support giving one penny to private companies to support the adoption of the technology, but he would highly encourage it be considered as an alternative to oil, natural gas, etc.

By being the first to address this technology it would show he has foresight and is technologically savvy.

This technology is going to create a huge amount of media attention. Either Ron Paul can be in the middle of it, or he can be swept away while Obama and others lie and claim they knew about this technology all along.

 

[Kylie]

I know nothing about this, but if your are correct, he does need to be at the frontlines of it.

 

[nocompromises]

This technology is absolutely real. It has been tested over and over again.

There is a one year research program taking place at the University of Bologna.

 

[Kylie]

I didn't say it wasn't real. I said I know nothing about it.

I thought that would get you to give me some links to study, not give me negative rep for saying I was ignorant.

 

[TruckinMike]

I think its a scam... Those guys are trolling for $$$.

read the comments...from http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-italian-scientists-cold-fusion-video.html

Over my pay grade... but it looks fishy to me.

TMike

 

[TIMB0B]

University of Baloney?

 

[TheNcredibleEgg]

I think it would be FANTASTIC if Ron Paul were the FIRST politician to address this technology, and insist the following....

Uh, no - bad idea.

Then Ron Paul would really be the nut some try to portray him as.

 

[nocompromises]

I did not negative rep you. If I did accidentally, I will up rep you.

 

[gerryb]

Tell me when I can rent a unit, and I'll believe it. Saw this come up several months ago, and it looks promising, but there have been too many false starts. It sounds like they will have their proof of concepts done later this year, so they should also be able to produce home units. I know of several hundred million people who will want one if they demonstrate the unit working at the local home depots' and lowes'.

 

[madengr]

An actual cold fusion reaction is nothing new. Read up on the Farnsworth Fusor, or ultra-sonic fusion. The trick is getting over the break-even point for energy.

 

[gerryb]

An actual cold fusion reaction is nothing new. Read up on the Farnsworth Fusor, or ultra-sonic fusion. The trick is getting over the break-even point for energy.

They claim to be able to produce a 8:1 energy surplus for a home unit, and up to 30:1 for their industrial size unit. But, they won't perform a closed-loop experiment. Instead they use 400 watt input, to produce 12,400 watt output, but never close the loop. They claim to have a unit running for 2 years, but won't unveil that setup for inspection...

 

[Texan4Life]

like many (most?) here I wouldn't know a hot potato from a cold fusion reactor if my life depended on it.

But if this is true I say that's a +1 for the free market... so much for subsidized green energy.

 

[fisharmor]

Over my pay grade... but it looks fishy to me.

No, it's not over your pay grade. You are as much the market as the average nuclear physicist. The only reason for it to be above your pay grade is if there are decisions here that can't be made by individual consumers. If this is real, then there's nothing to decide other than whether to buy it. If it's fake, then there's nothing to decide other than whether to buy it.

1) All subsidies to oil companies and alternative energy companies be dropped.

RP doesn't need revolutionary technology under his belt to advocate this. The subsidies are wrong despite what's going on in the market. It's a philosophical stand. Utilitarian arguments certainly help but they are not necessary. I would even argue that relying on pragmatic arguments shifts focus away from the philosophical stand.
Every RP interview I see starts with an interviewer stating "well your position is that gov't shouldn't be doing X, right?" "Yes." "Well then how do you explain Y?" And then he'll get into details of how in the particular instance brought up, liberty is a valid solution.
There's no reason to skip straight to the details portion, unless you want to muddy the message.

2) The military should research the technology to ensure a viable national defense here in the USA. Unlike hot fusion technology that the government has spent billions funding (with no results) cold fusion research can take place for 1/1000th the money. To show he supports government transparency, all military research on the technology (to provide mobile power sources for outposts on our borders and military bases) would be shared with the private sector.

The military should get cut off entirely. Thanks for the neocon party line, but take that elsewhere. You just stated in a lot more words that the military should spend research money. When the military spends research money, they create fighter planes that are five times more expensive than the last generation.

3) He would not support giving one penny to private companies to support the adoption of the technology, but he would highly encourage it be considered as an alternative to oil, natural gas, etc.

There are already alternatives which aren't being pursued because they're frickin' expensive. You want alternate energy? Convince the anti-civilization crowd to get serious about it. The current plan of exterminating human life isn't a viable option, particularly for people that also advocate gun control. If they could be convinced to grant a 10-year tax nonliability for installing roof solar electrical systems, you'd see three things happen:
1) People would be able to afford them
2) People would buy them to save money on bills
3) People would form small businesses to sell/ install them and employment would go up

Or how about more basic stuff, like pushing local government to allow installation of smaller plants?
In medieval Europe, every river and stream of any size at all was dammed so many times that there were regular arguments about constricting too much flow upstream.
In the "modern" USA, the same one that already has its rivers choked to death with foreign Asian carp, putting in a single hydroelectric generator at this point would be like begging for an EPA mandated prison sentence.

If we want change, the only way it's going to come about is by fighting the beast on philosophical ground, and pushing an individual technology isn't going to do that.

By being the first to address this technology it would show he has foresight and is technologically savvy.

I think he's doing a great job being savvy - and it has to do with the message, not any particular effort on his part.
Who was the first presidential candidate to start pulling in real money online?
His savvy has to do with the fact that he's not pulling any strings at all - he's letting us do what we do.
Last time around Bob Barr had a brilliant idea where he'd use TiVo to participate in the debates, even though he wasn't invited.
His staff simply paused the feed after BHO and McCain responded and he acted like he was involved.
How much technology cred did he get for that? Zero. Because he's a barely libertarian hack.
RP realizes that the only way to be on the bleeding edge is to give up control of the situation and just adapt to it.
He's not going to get anywhere by starting to push some agenda other than liberty.

 

[nocompromises]

They claim to be able to produce a 8:1 energy surplus for a home unit, and up to 30:1 for their industrial size unit. But, they won't perform a closed-loop experiment. Instead they use 400 watt input, to produce 12,400 watt output, but never close the loop. They claim to have a unit running for 2 years, but won't unveil that setup for inspection...

That is not true! Do your research!

Dr. Levi of the University of Bologna performed a test in which the E-Cat was in self sustain mode. They turned off the input power, and the device continued operating. The problem with self sustain mode is that it can cause explosions. For example, in self sustain mode the output can go from 10 to 15 kilowatts to 130 or more.

 

[nocompromises]

The military should get cut off entirely. Thanks for the neocon party line, but take that elsewhere. You just stated in a lot more words that the military should spend research money. When the military spends research money, they create fighter planes that are five times more expensive than the last generation.

So you don't think we should have a military at all? I'm for a much smaller military, but we do need a military. We just need it to defend our nation from the millions of illegal aliens flooding into our nation, and not from nations half way around the world.

 

[stuntman stoll]

I read a book a couple years ago, something like "sun in a bottle" about all the attempts to harness energy from fusion. Like was said earlier, causing fusion is nothing special; high school kids have done it in their basements. The problem is that the hydrogen plasma is nearly impossible to hold in place while zapping it with lasers (so most of the input energy is wasted). They have built billion dollar reactors in Europe that resemble giant magnetic donuts that still can't keep the plasma from escaping. Another issue is that the fusion reaction gives off neutrons (it is easy to test if a fusion reaction is happening just by measuring radiation). Neutrons aren't very harmful, but with the volume produced in a power plant, the entire reactor would crumble in a few years.

 

[libertybrewcity]

cold fusion is not real. It was hyped up a while back, but the scientists were proven wrong. If cold fusion existed you would absolutely know about it because it would be the worlds most popular energy source. Cold fusion would revolutionize the world a million times over. Scientists are now working on hot fusion using to different methods, both of which have not been perfected, but great strides have been made at advancing the technology.

The first is the tokamak fusion generator which uses an electromagnetic force to keep the "plasma" contained at extremely high temperatures. This plasma is made up of a soup of nucleons and particles. There is no way yet to actually get usable energy out of it. The second method is inertial fusion which basically shoots 10 or so lasers at a small molecule of tritium I believe which blows it up and creates a massive amount of energy.

 

[fisharmor]

That is not true! Do your research!

Do your own research, and post it here. You're the one showing up making fantastic claims. The burden of proof isn't on us.
But I'll just skip the "does it work" part of the argument and go straight for the throat here.

1) Generating power from heat requires steam. Steam requires a boiler.
There's a reason why petroleum took over the small power unit market - it's because boilers and steam are dangerous.

2) The components of a steam power unit break down regularly - something about water that, go figure, makes stuff rot and corrode. But hey, we've only known that for a couple thousand years.

3) Here comes the killing blow: steam power, if you're going to use it efficiently, requires a turbine.
Last I heard turbines were still worth more than their weight in gold. They're not McDonalds toys that can get crapped out of a Taiwanese factory. They're incredibly precise marvels of engineering.

So regardless whether it's viable technology or not, it's disingenuous to say it's the solution to the world's energy problems. It takes a hell of a lot of time, money, and energy to build a steam power system that isn't going to kill you, and it takes a hell of a lot of time, money, and energy to maintain that steam power system so that it doesn't kill you.
In the end you're talking about a 6-figure price tag to get a system that will do the same thing as a rooftop solar system, which, if it breaks, won't kill you.
There's no conspiracy here.

So you don't think we should have a military at all? I'm for a much smaller military, but we do need a military. We just need it to defend our nation from the millions of illegal aliens flooding into our nation, and not from nations half way around the world.

Yeah, I bet you'd say the same about cops, too.
Show me a single instance where the US military defended the US that happened after 1814, and I might change my mind.
So one instance that happened almost 200 years ago... I'd call that a pretty dismal record. If I did my job that well, I'd be eating out of a dumpster.

 

[Acala]

Do your own research, and post it here. You're the one showing up making fantastic claims. The burden of proof isn't on us.
But I'll just skip the "does it work" part of the argument and go straight for the throat here.

1) Generating power from heat requires steam. Steam requires a boiler.
There's a reason why petroleum took over the small power unit market - it's because boilers and steam are dangerous.

2) The components of a steam power unit break down regularly - something about water that, go figure, makes stuff rot and corrode. But hey, we've only known that for a couple thousand years.

3) Here comes the killing blow: steam power, if you're going to use it efficiently, requires a turbine.
Last I heard turbines were still worth more than their weight in gold. They're not McDonalds toys that can get crapped out of a Taiwanese factory. They're incredibly precise marvels of engineering.

So regardless whether it's viable technology or not, it's disingenuous to say it's the solution to the world's energy problems. It takes a hell of a lot of time, money, and energy to build a steam power system that isn't going to kill you, and it takes a hell of a lot of time, money, and energy to maintain that steam power system so that it doesn't kill you.
In the end you're talking about a 6-figure price tag to get a system that will do the same thing as a rooftop solar system, which, if it breaks, won't kill you.
There's no conspiracy here.

I don't mind if you dis this project. Chances are it will be filed with the all the magent motors, HOH, and zero point engines. BUT your critique of steam is unwarranted.

Steam is proven. Nuclear reactors are just advanced forms of steam engines. Putting aside its evil uses, most of the US navy has run on steam for fifty years. Steam started the industrial revolution. Steam plowed fields, drove nearly every large factory, and even powered automobiles. Steam really made this country. Steam engines came in every size and absolutely were and are suitable for a home power system. If you could mass-market a steam car 80 years ago, you can sure mass-market a household-sized steam electric generator today. Steam engines are safe when operated correctly and are even used as toys (which you can still buy today).

And yet I still don't have a steam engine.

 

[fisharmor]

Steam is proven.

I agree. There's nothing new really to find out about it. I'm merely mentioning the downsides which I believe green-mania has obscured.

Nuclear reactors are just advanced forms of steam engines.

And there's an army of engineers putting them together and running them. And they have turbines in them, because once you get above a certain power requirement, you need to superheat it and use steam turbines.

Putting aside its evil uses, most of the US navy has run on steam for fifty years.

I disagree: the US navy has run on steam for much longer than that. One evil use of the Navy that is often forgotten is when Commodore Matthew C. Perry steamed into Edo harbor.
The thing you need to ask is why it is that they stopped using steam so much. During WWI pretty much 100% of the Navy was steam-powered. In WWII that figure went down a lot. Nowadays only the nuclear craft are steam powered. No civilian craft are steam powered - they're all burning petroleum. Even the gigantic tankers.

In that particular case, sure, you'd start to see steam-powered craft show up in the marketplace and also in smaller Navy craft, if they had a fusion generator. But the cost and overhead involved in the ones they still use isn't all because of the nuclear component: the steam component has significant overhead as well.

Steam started the industrial revolution. Steam plowed fields, drove nearly every large factory, and even powered automobiles. Steam really made this country. Steam engines came in every size and absolutely were and are suitable for a home power system. If you could mass-market a steam car 80 years ago, you can sure mass-market a household-sized steam electric generator today. Steam engines are safe when operated correctly and are even used as toys (which you can still buy today).

Steam did build this country.
And as soon as petroleum analogs showed up, the market totally bailed on steam, because of its shortcomings.
It's not a conspiracy, it's the market in action.
Can you power a toy? Sure. Can you power a car? Maybe. Tractor? Maybe.
A house? A small factory? Now you're superheating it, and you're requiring the turbine.
It's a simple matter of resources. Will fusion-steam electricity find its niche? Sure. I believe wholeheartedly the market would take care of it in the best possible way.
I do not believe that we'll have fusion-powered cars. Trains maybe. Maybe even passenger aircraft. Certainly cruise ships.
But the scale of the problem is going to limit it to big implementations, at least until someone figures out a more reliable, cheaper, less maintenance-intensive way to convert a ton of heat into electricity.

And yet I still don't have a steam engine.

Neither do I, because anything relatively safe is a toy, and anything not a toy carries with it a level of danger and a maintenance schedule required to avoid it which I'm not comfortable with.