Cold fusion, Why not? Options

[Floydsvoid]

Fuck.

This guy is on the left coast, right? Hopefully those of us'n down south will be ok and only have to worry about the occasional hurricane

[GlassBeadGame]

Well if you don't have a kid to put in a floating mushroom I suppose there are other ways to get a zany mad scientist reality TV show.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

How long is it going to take before all this hits reliable source? Any bets?

Not soon. On the other hand, if you were pushing a theory that some technology essential for the preservation of human life were a threat to the environment in some exotic and unprovable way, you'd be up for a Nobel (and/or an Oscar.)

[Angela Kennedy]

How long is it going to take before all this hits reliable source? Any bets?

Not soon. On the other hand, if you were pushing a theory that some technology essential for the preservation of human life were a threat to the environment in some exotic and unprovable way, you'd be up for a Nobel (and/or an Oscar.)

And if you show that that the 'toxic' personalities of CFS patients can bend spoons, by taking five CFS patients, and finding a bent spoon in the cutlery drawer of one of them (you won't even need to use a control population), you'll DEFINITELY get published in a Reliable Source.

[Peter Damian]

Meanwhile, on the cold fusion kitchen kit project, it's coming along swimmingly.

Can you assure me you live nowhere near SW London?

[Abd]

Fuck.

Fuse, not fuck. Difference: with the former, you can pull out or away, with the latter, better be sure first. Similarity: loss of virginity isn't reversible. Unfuse isn't possible with helium unless you smash it with a sledge, so to speak.

Well if you don't have a kid to put in a floating mushroom I suppose there are other ways to get a zany mad scientist reality TV show.

I've got some very cute kids. I'll have to photograph them with the kit.

How long is it going to take before all this hits reliable source? Any bets?

Not soon. On the other hand, if you were pushing a theory that some technology essential for the preservation of human life were a threat to the environment in some exotic and unprovable way, you'd be up for a Nobel (and/or an Oscar.)

What's soon? And what's the bet? Nobel? Nah, Fleischmann should get that, probably Pons with him. Oscar? For what? I suppose what I'm doing is dramatization, it's publicity, design to cut through the noise, and it will. Unless, of course, the peer-reviewers were all deluded, and the effect doesn't exist in spite of the weight in reliable sources. I suppose that's possible.

And if you show that that the 'toxic' personalities of CFS patients can bend spoons, by taking five CFS patients, and finding a bent spoon in the cutlery drawer of one of them (you won't even need to use a control population), you'll DEFINITELY get published in a Reliable Source.

Sure. I'll take it. Spoons are cheap. I don't like the bit about toxic personalities, though. Seems a tad vicious.

Can you assure me you live nowhere near SW London?

Depends. How near is near? Given that CF is supposedly bogus, why would you be worried? This cell will have 25 ml of heavy water in it. Possibly a quarter of that will be electrolyzed to deuterium gas and oxygen. It's an open cell, but if somehow this were to collect in one place, and a spark were to set it off, it would be like a firecracker. That's it. CF cells of a different type, with far, far more surface area (it's apparently a surface effect) have melted down, and there have been one or two unexplained explosions, also of much larger devices, but it's more likely that your cell phone battery would explode.

If I'm lucky, I'll be generating enough energetic neutrons to produce one track per minute, most of them in a few square centimeters of a solid-state nuclear track detector stack. I don't know what the detector efficiency will be, it could be calculated, but it's probably a few percent. (Mostly, the neutrons will pass through without interacting.)

This is an experiment optimized for neutron generation and detection; except for more extensive instrumentation, the protocol closely follows work published over the last few years by the U.S. Naval Laboratory in San Diego, California (SPAWAR), most notably this year in Naturwissenschaften and the European Physical Journal of Applied Physics. Nuclear tracks in SSNTDs in "cold fusion" experiments were first reported in 1990 by a Chinese group. However, it was only last year that SPAWAR published any neutron reports; they had apparently known for some time, but did not publish because they needed to first obtain a military security release. Neutrons are ... interesting.

[Peter Damian]

Can you assure me you live nowhere near SW London?

Depends. How near is near? Given that CF is supposedly bogus, why would you be worried?

Worried about thermonuclear explosions emanating from your kitchen and destroying significant parts of the metropolis.

[CharlotteWebb]

Can you assure me you live nowhere near SW London?

Depends. How near is near? Given that CF is supposedly bogus, why would you be worried?

Worried about thermonuclear explosions emanating from your kitchen and destroying significant parts of the metropolis.

Would suggest Westminster but it's a few days late for that.

[Abd]

This guy is on the left coast, right? Hopefully those of us'n down south will be ok and only have to worry about the occasional hurricane

No, Massachusetts.

I do expect a fireball, actually quite a few of them. I hope to see them, the reports (and SEM images) are of holes in the palladium deposit that are on the order of 10 microns across, which probably means a much smaller reaction site, hot enough to vaporize palladium. So the "fireball" could be less than a micron across. Just a flash of light, very tiny, I'll be lucky if I can see it in a microscope in total darkness, and a few neutrons, maybe, from relatively rare secondary reactions.

As such things go, this is an extraordinarily simple experiment to reproduce, it appears. As a Wikipedia editor, it was frustrating to see cutting edge research and then have to wonder about reproduction, which can take years to make it into publication. So ... why not cut through the bullshit and Just Do It? That's the wiki model, applied to the world.

[Abd]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, which is why I live so dangerously. You can't get a lot of knowledge without starting with a little.

If you're fusing 4 D's into one Be-8 which then fissions, each alpha gets (let me see) something like 23.8 MeV. Which makes them hotter than you'll ever see from alpha decay, and up there with helium nuclei from a small cyclotron. Range in air should be on the order of (let me see) about 26 cm, or 10 inches.

I'd read some of Takahashi's papers, not all. Turns out I was making an unwarranted assumption. Yes, Be-8 will decay into two alpha particles with as much as 23.8 MeV, but that's not the normal path. In an earlier paper, Takahashi described the expected decay mode, which normally first involves a series of photon emissions from the excited nucleus, they may be in the EUV range, which would be absorbed entirely by the lattice, or by the electrolyte if it's close enough to the surface, and it probably isn't. These emissions dump most of that energy, and if it reaches the ground state before it fissions, the alphas end up with only energy in the KeV range.

Funny, a lot of others in the field have apparently missed this as well, because I did, many months ago, ask the Vortex-L mailing list -- which does include some quite knowledgeable writers -- about Takahashi's theory, and they made the same assumption, that the alphas would be at 23.8 MeV, which doesn't match observation.

I'm no longer terribly convinced that there are any alphas at all in what SPAWAR has been detecting, the heavy damage on the front side of the CR-39 looks a lot like chemical damage to me, at least some of it, and the rest could be from other effects caused by neutrons.

What's convincing is the triple-tracks and apparent knock-on protons on the back side of the CR-39. No chemical damage there, and no confusion with possible alpha radiation, which couldn't reach that location. And, apparently, under the right conditions, it's plentiful. Those are the conditions I'm preparing to reproduce, specifically the use of a gold cathode. I have seen no theory formally proposed as to why a gold substrate would produce far higher apparent neutron tracks, but the experimental evidence is clear. Silver, practically none, platinum, more, and gold, plentiful. Comparatively, it must be remembered that these detectors have been exposed to the cathode for about three weeks. A very low level of radiation will produce a lot of tracks in that time.

The neutrons are almost certainly not involved in the primary reaction; Mosier-Boss et al speculate that they are produced by secondary reactions, and they cite Takahashi and another theorist for possibilities for the primary reaction, and they suggest that rare d-t fusion (rare because there is very little tritium in these cells -- but the reactions are known through many reports to also generate low levels of tritium) may be the cause of the neutron radiation. I suspect not.

By gosh, something that is apparently easily reproducible that we don't understand. I think that's cool, but some seem to get a bit uptight about it, coming up with far more outlandish theories to explain it away than simply accepting the possibility of nuclear reactions under these quite unusual conditions, very dense deuterium, above 1:1, probably, as a ratio to the palladium in the cathode, and the added constraint of the metal lattice, and the lack of good previous analysis of the implications of such confinement from the POV of quantum field theory. The difficulty of getting that high a loading ratio with most palladium metal was the cause of the famous early difficulties at reproduction; codeposition side-steps it by building up palladium deuteride at about 1:1 ab initio.

Note that whatever condition produces the reaction must be rare, very rare, or else a few laboratories would have vaporized. Good thing it's rare!

Progress report: I have all the materials for the kits, but am waiting for a part to arrive for my drill press. Deuterium oxide was the hardest material to get and also the most expensive per kit, and the U.S. company with the best prices for a kilogram of 99.9% D2O didn't want to sell it to me, apparently the idea that an individual, an unincorporated small business, would want to buy from them, was off the map, somewhere in terra incognita. So I bought it from a Canadian company, slightly lower price but higher shipping cost because they sent it next day Federal Express, apparently they thought my credit card was good.

Not considered a hazardous material, not seriously controlled by the regulatory agencies.

I've started calibrating the etching of CR-39 detectors, there is plenty to occupy me there for at least a week, maybe longer. Hacked up a smoke detector to get an Am-241 alpha source. First attempt at etching to reveal nuclear tracks, yesterday, was a flop, etched for way too long and the surface of the detector was hamburger, as the Russian experts on this stuff call it. So, right now, I'm doing a much shorter etch. I'm using a different material than most researchers, just trying commercial makrolon to see if the background is tolerable. If so, it's much cheaper, and cost is very important to this project. I've figured out a way to subtract out most of the background radiation, while at the same time making the detection of neutrons more recognizable as such. Hope it works. If not, I have other options, including official solid-state nuclear track detectors plus a Boron-10 converter screen, though, really, these are apparently energetic neutrons, and Boron-10 is only good for thermal and epithermal neutrons. Still, either way, I should be able to detect neutrons if there are any.

I can't believe how little this is costing, in fact. I should be able to sell experimental cells for under $100, just strip the detectors of their protective covering, put them back in the cell, which includes the electrode assemblies, in two stacks, pour in the included electrolyte (deuterium oxide, palladium chloride, lithium chloride) and apply current according to a specific protocol, for about three weeks. Then you'll have to etch the detectors. I may offer an etching service for those who don't want hot 6.5N sodium hydroxide in their bathroom. Why am I doing this in the bathroom? Because if somehow I splash this stuff in my eyes, I will step directly into the shower, do not stop to undress, and turn it on full blast in my face.... Not likely to need to do that, but better ready than not. It's just a 500 ml beaker on a lab hotplate/stirrer. Ebay is great.

I really should get some goggles.

[GlassBeadGame]

Progress report: I have all the materials for the kits, but am waiting for a part to arrive for my drill press. Deuterium oxide was the hardest material to get and also the most expensive per kit, and the U.S. company with the best prices for a kilogram of 99.9% D2O didn't want to sell it to me, apparently the idea that an individual, an unincorporated small business, would want to buy from them, was off the map, somewhere in terra incognita. So I bought it from a Canadian company, slightly lower price but higher shipping cost because they sent it next day Federal Express, apparently they thought my credit card was good.

Glad to know you're still with us. When I don't hear from you for a couple of weeks I worry. BTW, do you have difficulty flying on commercial airlines?

[One]

Not considered a hazardous material, not seriously controlled by the regulatory agencies.

Well, it's just denser water, so I wouldn't expect any special packaging, but I'm surprised it's not regulated. Could be used to breed plutonium in a heavy water reactor. That always seemed like it would be a lot easier than dealing with uranium hexafluoride to me.

About how much is it per g?

[Random832]

Well, it's just denser water, so I wouldn't expect any special packaging, but I'm surprised it's not regulated. Could be used to breed plutonium in a heavy water reactor.

Doesn't that require other materials which are regulated? If it was possible to use ordinary water (in any capacity), should that be regulated?

[One]

Well, it's just denser water, so I wouldn't expect any special packaging, but I'm surprised it's not regulated. Could be used to breed plutonium in a heavy water reactor.

Doesn't that require other materials which are regulated? If it was possible to use ordinary water (in any capacity), should that be regulated?

This isn't a good hypothetical. A lot of components could be used to make an atomic bomb, but heavy water is unlike many of them because it is expensive, rare, and doesn't have much use beyond nuclear energy and research. You would expect research universities and corporate departments to buy it for biological marking and NMR use, and nuclear power plants obviously need it, but I cannot fathom why it should be sold to unaffiliated civilians. It's hard to imagine what they would even use it for.

Consider for example, that there are many possible substrates used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. However, government agencies tend to focus on the ones that are highly specific, indispensable, and required in bulk (like pseudoephedra) rather than potential reagents with a myriad of other legitimate and beneficial purposes (bleach).

For the sake of argument, if one wanted to prevent nuclear proliferation, would one worry about tracking the use of common materials (like steel), or of exotic and rare substances that are only produced at a few sites in the world (heavy water)? This isn't a hard question.

This post has been edited by One: Mon 7th December 2009, 6:35pm

[The Wales Hunter]

Is the sale of smoke detectors regulated? Could easily make a dirty bomb if you bought enough of them.

[dogbiscuit]

Is the sale of smoke detectors regulated? Could easily make a dirty bomb if you bought enough of them.

Strange use of the word "easily" when you consider the if.

[Random832]

What a moronic hypothetical.

Consider for example, that there are many possible substrates used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. However, government agencies tend to focus on the ones that are highly specific, indispensable, and required in bulk (like pseudoephedra) rather than potential reagents with a myriad of other legitimate and beneficial purposes (bleach).

For the sake of argument, if one wanted to prevent nuclear proliferation, would one worry about tracking the use of common materials (like steel), or of exotic and rare substances that are only produced at a few sites in the world (heavy water)? This isn't a hard question.

Wouldn't it make sense to track the substances that are actually dangerous on their own? Like Uranium or whatever?

[CharlotteWebb]

Is the sale of smoke detectors regulated? Could easily make a dirty bomb if you bought enough of them.

Could be why the hotels have gone photo-electric. Wouldn't want the housekeepers going south with pockets full of kryptonite Am-241.

Actually I think most would just try to smoke it.

[One]

Wouldn't it make sense to track the substances that are actually dangerous on their own? Like Uranium or whatever?

Natural uranium is not usable for fission on its own...unless you have heavy water.

Enriching it requires large bombable facilities, and very hazardous work with uranium hexafluoride gas. In fact, compared to heavy water, uranium ore is quite common and cheap. It sits on the ground in my home state, and it's not a hazard.

Enriched uranium is another story--and it's also heavily regulated. I just find it strange that unaffiliated personal can have heavy water FedEx'd to them, no questions asked. I'm not arguing that it should be regulated, just that it seems odd to me. Perhaps they only ask buyers hard questions if they want to buy more than the modest amount you might expect researchers to buy.



Note: I am sorry. I revised that first highly rude sentence into a less rude paragraph:

This isn't a good hypothetical. A lot of components could be used to make an atomic bomb, but heavy water is unlike many of them because it is expensive, rare, and doesn't have much use beyond nuclear energy and research. You would expect research universities and corporate departments to buy it for biological marking and NMR use, and nuclear power plants obviously need it, but I cannot fathom why it should be sold to unaffiliated civilians. It's hard to imagine what they would even use it for.

This post has been edited by One: Mon 7th December 2009, 6:49pm

[Milton Roe]

Wouldn't it make sense to track the substances that are actually dangerous on their own? Like Uranium or whatever?

Natural uranium is not usable for fission on its own...unless you have heavy water.

Enriching it requires large bombable facilities, and very hazardous work with uranium hexafluoride gas. In fact, compared to heavy water, uranium ore is quite common and cheap. It sits on the ground in my home state, and it's not a hazard.

Enriched uranium is another story--and it's also heavily regulated. I just find it strange that unaffiliated personal can have heavy water FedEx'd to them, no questions asked. I'm not arguing that it should be regulated, just that it seems odd to me. Perhaps they only ask buyers hard questions if they want to buy more than the modest amount you might expect researchers to buy.

Note: I am sorry. I revised that first highly rude sentence into a less rude paragraph:

This isn't a good hypothetical. A lot of components could be used to make an atomic bomb, but heavy water is unlike many of them because it is expensive, rare, and doesn't have much use beyond nuclear energy and research. You would expect research universities and corporate departments to buy it for biological marking and NMR use, and nuclear power plants obviously need it, but I cannot fathom why it should be sold to unaffiliated civilians. It's hard to imagine what they would even use it for.

The making of a reactor with natural uranium and heavy water is possible, but (as you've guessed) the amounts of heavy water needed would set off alarms somewhere. With 3% enriched uranium, such reactors (dissolved uranyl nitrate) are about a foot across (my old university had one!), which means 40 lbs of heavy water or so. But go to natural U-235 concentrations and you must scale the radius by 4, which means needed heavy water goes up by 4^3 = 64 times = 2500 lbs or so. Call it a ton or 1000 kg or so, and it starts to look like the reactor the Nazis were trying to make. That much heavy water is hard for civilians to accumulate (not impossible) even if they have the half million in cash. Then (ore on the ground or not) you have to purify 100 kg of uranium nitrate, fairly high grade with no neutron absorbing crap, and that's not easy, either. By the time you finish using that much nitric acid, the feds will be looking at you carefully anyway.

Do I think somebody's going to eventually put together such a thing (a sphere with reflector less than 10 feet across) let it cook underground a few years at criticality to generate fission products, then scatter the results with a ton of conventional explosive? Probably. The materials are accessable overseas. It's not an easy proposition, because even if you transport them into the US before doing the critical reaction (easy) you can't make a lot of fission products without getting rid of a lot of heat, which is why Hanford was built on the Columbia river. So this thing will need a cooling system and end up looking on FLIR a lot like an underground marijuana farm. Besides spitting out gammas even with the earth shield. Good luck unless you're down in some old mine.

Anyway, if somebody even does a half-assed job of dirty bomb making in this way, the feds will clamp down on heavy water sales bigtime. No more jam-jar fusion experiments without getting the DOE licence and a lot of paperwork.

Milton (not telling anything the feds or terrorists don't know already).